Turkey blocks access to Instagram

Turkey blocked access to the Instagram social media network on Friday, without giving any official explanation, following censorship accusations against the US company from a high-ranking Turkish official.

Many users living in Turkey complained on the X platform that they could not refresh their Instagram feed, an issue verified by AFP journalists.

The BTK communications authority announced on its website on Friday that the Meta-owned platform had been blocked. 

It did not give a reason but a BTK official told Turkish media it was because of "criminal content" on Instagram that the latter had been asked to withdraw.

The President's Communications Director, Fahrettin Altun, had on Wednesday accused Instagram of censure, saying it was "preventing people from publishing messages of condolence for the martyr Haniyeh."

Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of 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 decreed a national day of mourning in memory of Haniyeh, who played a key role in talks aimed at ending nearly 10 months of war in Gaza. 

"This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censure," Altun said on X.

An anonymous BTK source denied the move was due to Instagram blocking posts about Haniyeh, telling website Medyascope that it was over "insults to Ataturk," the founding father of modern Turkey, and "crimes" including "drug games (and) paedophilia."

He said the platform would be blocked permanently if it didn't resolve the problem. 

According to Turkish media, 50 million of the country's 85 million people have an Instagram account.

Digital Law Expert Yaman Akdeniz said the decision had likely been taken either by the president’s office or by a government ministry.

He said BTK needed to get the decision approved by a judge and it was unlikely a judge would approve it.

"The censure imposed on Instagram is arbitrary and can be neither explained nor justified," he said on X.

The decision to freeze the platform at 03:00am on Friday sparked derision on other social media networks such as X.

"Instagram is blocked in Turkey. Life is over," wrote user "CringeOfMaster" alongside a picture of a grieving man.

"BTK’s job isn’t to cut off the internet but to get it working faster," said IT professor Cem Say, noting that Turkey ranked "111th in the world for internet speed."

This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have temporarily blocked access to social media sites, notably following attacks.

Wikipedia was blocked between April 2017 and January 2020 over two articles that alleged a link between the presidency and extremism.

Although Erdogan's government is regularly accused of muzzling freedom of expression, the move to stop Wikipedia caused shock because of the huge amount of online information that became inaccessible.

In April, Facebook owner Meta suspended its Threads social network in Turkey following a decision by authorities there to prevent it from sharing information with Instagram.