Twitter is quick to use and efficiently offers a gateway to the rest of the world. But quake-hit people were unable to use the social media on Wednesday which unleashed severe backlash on Turkish government, which has a history of restricting social media access to people. Why the Twitter bird was caged?
As per reports, it started when Turkish people thronged on social media and bashed Erdogan’s government in its failure to efficiently respond in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake that hit the Middle East nation on Monday. Turkish social media was flooded with remarks from users who were dissatisfied with the state of search and rescue operations in their areas after the devastating earthquake. The Twitter outage occurred as Erdogan visited two of the most severely affected areas in Turkey.
What followed was Turkish police stamping its authority on these social media dissenters. Over a dozen have been detained so far for criticizing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government and its post-quake relief measures.
The report of Twitter inaccessibility was confirmed by AFP news agency as well where the ground reporters could not get their hands on the microblogging site on major Turkish mobile providers Wednesday. However, the agency reported that Twitter was still accessible using virtual private network (VPN) services, that hides user’s physical location.
This comes in the backdrop of the looming risk at Erdogan’s political aspirations ahead of May 14 election in which the President will eye for an extension to his two-decade rule.
Meanwhile, taking to Twitter, the netblocks.org social media monitor said the social media website was being restricted “on multiple internet providers in Turkey”. “Turkey has an extensive history of social media restrictions during national emergencies and safety incidents,” the monitor added.
The issue was not immediately addressed by Turkish officials, who repeatedly warned against the circulation of false information ahead of the May polls. At least 11,200 people were killed by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Monday and its aftershocks across southeast Turkey and portions of Syria.
(With inputs from agencies)
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