Prior to the May 14, 2023 elections, Twitter had blocked access to many accounts and tweets at the request of the Turkish government. Now, both the reason for the blocking has been announced and a detailed list has been shared.
The election process in Turkey creates an agenda not only in our country, but also all over the world from time to time with statements made through social media. However, an important part of this agenda is aimed at directing the real agenda of the voters, and some of them are asparagas and most to the evidence in need manipulative news and due to the contents.
This is why the Turkish government requested Twitter to block a number of accounts and tweets before the 14 May 2023 elections. Similar to ‘February 6 Earthquakes’demands did not meet forThe Twitter management, whose access was blocked, met the request this time ‘in order not to interfere with the right of its users to receive information’ on the election day. Elon Musk stated that they will announce the details of the request later.
Twitter’s description is as follows:
For those who could not view the tweet above, the Turkish version of the statement is as follows;
“Today we would like to make a briefing about our Türkiye policy.
We were negotiating with the Turkish Government over the past week and they told us that Twitter is the only social media outlet that does not comply with all current court orders.
After several such warnings, we received a warning that we believe there is a recent threat of band throttling to Twitter, so we have blocked access to 4 accounts and 409 Tweets to keep Twitter available during the weekend’s election.
We have raised our concerns about freedom of expression directly to the authorities.
We will continue to challenge court decisions here, as we do with all requests, but there was no other legal remedy available just prior to voting.
So far, five court orders have been issued against Twitter regarding content subject to access restrictions, and we have appealed four of them. While one of our objections was dismissed, the other three court decisions are still being reviewed by the relevant courts. We will appeal the fifth court decision tomorrow.
Below we publish a copy of the court orders and regulatory agency correspondence regarding the blocking proceedings.”