Image by Arzu Geybullayeva

Much of Turkey awoke on August 2 to the news that one of the country's most popular social media sites, Instagram, had been blocked by the country's communication authority. According to the reports, the site was blocked after Turkish communications official Fahrettin Altun criticized the platform for censoring condolence messages for the death of Ismail Haniyeh, a key official of Hamas — an Islamic Resistance group that governs the Palestinian territory of Gaza. Altun said:

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. This is censorship, pure and simple.

Turkey views Hamas as a resistance movement, rather than a terrorist organization and has long provided material support to the group and its leadership.

On July 31, Haniyeh was reportedly killed in Iran following an assassination attempt. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the killing in a strongly worded statement on X, formerly Twitter, calling it a “treacherous assassination” and “a despicable attempt to undermine the Palestinian Cause, the glorious resistance of Gaza, and the rightful struggle of our Palestinian brothers, aiming to demoralize, intimidate, and suppress them.” He also named August 2 a national day of mourning in honor of Haniyeh.

Altun accused Israel of dragging the region “into further turmoil through assassinations and covert actions intended to kill any chance of peace. The assassination against Ismail Haniyeh is the latest example of state-sponsored terrorism in blatant violation of state sovereignty of another country.”

On August 2, the day of the country-wide mourning, Turkey blocked access to Instagram. An open-source resource on internet censorship around the world, OONI Explorer, confirmed the blocking:

Screenshot of OONI Explorer confirming the blocking of Instagram in Turkey as of August 2, 2024

In response to the blocking, professor of law and expert on internet freedom issues in Turkey, Yaman Akdeniz, tweeted:

Güne Instagram platformunun erişime engellenmesi ve sansürlenmesiyle başlıyoruz. Gerekçesi milli güvenlik ve kamu düzeninin korunması. / Access to Instagram platform has been blocked from Turkey as of this morning. https://t.co/TSppZrQQ3w

— Yaman Akdeniz (@cyberrights) August 2, 2024

We are starting the day with blocked access and censorship of the platform Instagram. The grounds for the blocking are national security and public order.

Akdeniz also said the decision was “arbitrary,” adding that the decision to block the platform was likely made by the president or one of the ministries. According to existing legislation, a judgeship of the peace must approve any website blocking before it is carried out. However, no such approval was issued at the time of writing this story.

Hours after the blocking, an official who spoke to news platform Medyascope said Altun's remarks were not the real reason the platform was blocked. They claimed the decision was a long time coming, due to the platform's failure to follow state demands on numerous issues, including offenses against national security and public order, child abuse, encouraging suicide, illegal betting, and others. Turkey's Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, said that even though the government had warned the platform on several occasions, it refused to comply with state demands. “We are in communication with [Instagram]. Once they comply, we will lift the ban,” said the minister in a statement on August 2.

The blocking of the popular platform led to much criticism online. Journalist Mehmet Emin Kurnaz tweeted:

Yeter artık. Bizim adımıza Heniye için yas tutar, keyfine göre Heniye için instagram kapatır, sabah Haniye, akşam Haniye diye ağlar sızlarlar. Sizi İsraille ticaretten vazgeçirmek için bile 30 takla attık, başaramadık. Gidin kimin yasını tutarsanız tutun bizi niye zorluyorsunuz.

— Mehmet Emin Kurnaz (@m_emin_kurnaz) August 2, 2024

Enough already. They mourn for Haniye in our name, shut down Instagram for Haniye as they wish, cry for Haniye in the morning and in the evening. We tried 30 times to dissuade you from doing business with Israel, but we failed. Go and mourn for whoever you want, why are you forcing us?

Writer Abdullah Naci tweeted:

ülkeyi 17 yaşındaki kanzi kafasıyla yönetiyorlar. ne devlet aklı kaldı, ne yasa, ne teamül. bir gece ansızın gelebiliriz diye atar yapıyorlar, canları sıkılınca instagram'ı kapatıp trip atıyorlar dünyaya.

— abdullah naci (@abdullahnaci) August 2, 2024

They rule the country with the mentality of a 17-year-old kanzi [a male bonobo monkey]. There is no sense of state left, no law, no custom. They threaten to enter overnight, and when they are bored, they shut down Instagram and sulk.

Naci's reference to an overnight invasion comes from President Erdoğan's recent threat to enter Israel overnight to end the conflict with Gaza on July 28 which triggered a minor diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Israel.

Another journalist Fatih Altayli also chimed in, writing on X that in blocking access to Instagram, the authorities had reached a “new dimension in censorship and pressure on the media.”

Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu in a live feed on X said, “Limiting access to social media platforms stifles free expression and hinders the flow of information.”

Meanwhile, President Erdoğan wished everyone a “blessed Friday on his personal Instagram account, however, the post was deleted shortly after:

Instagram'ın kapatıldığı gün Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan'ın hesabından Hayırlı Cumalar storysi paylaşıldı pic.twitter.com/pwzngP2SFj

— nevsin mengu (@nevsinmengu) August 2, 2024

The day Instagram was blocked President Erdoğan shared a story from his Instagram account wishing everyone a Blessed Friday.

The BTK and its powers

In 2000, the Turkish government set up the Telecommunications Authority, “to perform the regulatory and supervision duties in the electronic communication sector.” The agency was restructured in 2008, taking on a new name: the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK). It operates under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure.

In 2016, following the failed coup attempt, Turkey shut down the Department of Telecommunications and Communications (TİB) — Turkey’s leading internet censor — and handed all of its authority to the BTK.

TİB was set up in 2005 with the main purpose of centralizing, “the surveillance of communications and execution of interception of communications warrants.”

In the aftermath of the coup, the authorities claimed that the “TİB was used as a hub for FETÖ [The Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation] for surveillance and wiretapping purposes.”

As such, with its new powers, the BTK went from being a regulatory body to an authority with surveillance powers that included, “the authority to take any measure it deems necessary to uphold ‘national security and public order; prevent crime; protect public health and public morals; or protect the rights and freedoms’ and inform operators, access providers, data centers, hosting providers and content providers of the said measure, who then need to take action within two hours.”

The same year authorities shut down TİB, the country adopted Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data, which prohibited the processing or storage of personal data without consent from the subject. However, there were a few exceptions to the law, wherein this data could be processed and stored if it was a matter of national security. As such, the law states, in the “processing of personal data within the scope of preventive, protective, and intelligence activities carried out by public institutions and organizations duly authorized and assigned to maintain national defense, national security, public security, public order, or economic security,” the Data Protection Law shall not apply. In addition, three new decree laws allowed interception of any internet data without a court order or supervision, of individuals allegedly linked to the coup.

According to the most recent Internet Censorship report produced by the Free Web Turkey platform, “access to 219,059 URLs, including 197,907 domain names were blocked in Turkey in 2023. While the number of blocked news was 14,680, the most blocked news was about corruption and irregularities.” In addition according to the findings of the report, 5,641 social media posts and 743 social media accounts were also removed or banned.

Turkey has a long history and tradition of blocking content or throttling internet access. Most recently, on July 12, access to the storytelling platform WattPad was blocked without citing any reasons for the block. In December 2023, the BTK imposed an access ban on 16 VPN providers. Following the devastating February 2023 earthquakes, access to Twitter and TikTok was temporarily throttled. The country is ranked “not free” on the annual Freedom on the Net report published by Freedom House.