Turkey blocks access to Instagram over 'censorship', mentions no duration

Turkish communications official Fahrettin Altun, has slammed the Meta-owned platform for 'blocking condolence posts on the killing of Ismail Haniyeh'

In a surprise move, Turkey (Türkiye) blocked access to Instagram for its citizens. The development follows censorship accusations against the US social media platform by a high-ranking Turkish official.

The BTK communications authority, the country’s infotech regulator, announced the ban, leaving the platform’s mobile app inaccessible. BTK published the August 2 decision on its website without stating any reason (or duration) for the ban.  

Earlier, on Wednesday, Turkish communications official Fahrettin Altun, had slammed the Meta-owned platform for “blocking condolence posts on the killing of Ismail Haniyeh”, a key official of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. “This is censorship, pure and simple,” he alleged.

Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of the armed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack blamed on Israel. Erdogan even declared Friday (August 2) as a day of national mourning over the killing of Haniyeh.

Since the ban, many users living in Turkey have been complaining on the X platform that they are not able to refresh their Instagram feed.

So far, Meta Inc has not issued any statement on the ban in Turkey.

According to Turkish media, there are more than 50 million users signed up to Instagram in Turkey, out of a population of 85 million.

Notably, this is not the first time Turkish authorities have blocked access to social media sites. Between April 2017 and January 2020, Wikipedia was blocked in the country over two articles on extremism.