Twitter back online in Turkey

Twitter was blocked for at least 12 hours on major Turkish mobile providers in an outage that ended early Thursday, following a flurry of online criticism of the government’s response to this week’s deadly earthquake.

By about 5 am (0200 GMT), the social media site was accessible again.

Online monitor netblocks.org on Wednesday showed Twitter becoming throttled and then completely blocked across all major cell phone providers in the country. The site still worked using VPN services that disguise a user’s location.

The country is still stricken after Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake, which killed at least 15,000 people there and in neighbouring Syria.

Turkish social media has been filled with posts by people complaining about a lack of search and rescue efforts in their provinces.

Officials have issued repeated warnings about spreading misinformation in advance of a crucial May 14 election in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will try to extend his two-decade rule.

Netblocks.org confirmed access returned Thursday after Turkish officials held a videoconference call with Twitter executives.

The restoration came after the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, tweeted: “Twitter has been informed by the Turkish government that access will be enabled shortly.”

Turkish deputy infrastructure minister Omer Fatih Sayan tweeted he had spoken with Twitter leaders and “reminded them of their responsibilities to our country after this disaster”, adding that Turkey expected more cooperation in the “fight against disinformation”.

Turkey has in the past restricted social media during national emergencies and safety incidents.

NP/Dominica Nwabufo