Turkiye blocks access to Instagram platform

Turkiye has blocked access to social media platform Instagram, the infotech regulator said today, without stating a reason or duration for the ban, which also left the platform’s mobile app inaccessible, Reuters reports.

The move follows comments on Wednesday by Turkish communications official Fahrettin Altun, criticising the platform for what he called its decision to block condolence posts on the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

“I also strongly condemn the social media platform Instagram which is actively preventing people from posting messages of condolences for the passing of Hamas leader Haniyeh without citing any policy violations,” he wrote on X. “This is censorship, pure and simple.”

Altun added: “We will defend freedom of speech against these platforms that have showed many times that they are primarily in the service of global exploitative system of injustice. We will stand with our Palestinian brothers and sisters in every opportunity and in every platform.”

Our dear brother Ismail Haniyeh, political bureau chief of Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, has faced death with the kind of humility that his enemies can never understand. He is one of the great heroes and a martyr for the Palestinian cause. May God bless his soul.…

— Fahrettin Altun (@fahrettinaltun) July 31, 2024

There was no immediate comment from Instagram parent Meta Platforms Inc META.O on either the ban or Altun’s comments.

Turkiye’s Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK) published the 2 August decision on its website.

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