Access to Instagram in Turkey has been blocked by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) today. It was stated that this decision was made due to the posts made on the platform after the assassination of Palestine and Ismail Haniye. It is also stated that the court approval will be received within 24-48 hours after this decision, which BTK made by using its ex officio closure authority. Following the decision, Minister of Transport Abdulkadir Uraloğlu and Deputy Minister Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan made statements on social media. It is noteworthy that Instagram was not directly mentioned in both statements.
Minister of Transport Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, in his post on X, said, “We are a country of law. Our country has rules, values and sensitivities. We have a framework that we call catalog crimes and we warned them within this framework, but since we could not find the necessary response, we imposed an access ban.” Uraloğlu emphasized that this decision was taken in terms of national security and public order.
Deputy Minister Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan stated in his statement that Western countries’ social media platforms quickly took measures on many issues, especially catalog crimes, but they did not show the same sensitivity in Turkey. Sayan said, “We want the safe, clean and fair content mechanism that these platforms offer in countries where they abide by the rules to be valid in Turkey as well.”
Sayan also stated that social media platforms apply double standards and do not respond positively to requests to open a representative office in Turkey. “We said let’s build a cleaner internet together, let our people find someone to talk to, but they did some show business with some virtual offices. We prevented all these backstabbing with the changes we made to the law,” he said.
Deputy Minister of Transport Sayan stated that such measures were taken because social media platforms were not complying with the rules they were supposed to implement in Turkey. “We see that they are still trying to maintain the same understanding. They say, ‘I read what I know, I publish what I want, I don’t publish what I want.’ We have not accepted this, and we will not accept it. We will do whatever is necessary to establish a cleaner and safer social media that respects our values, is free of disinformation.”
The access ban decision has had a wide impact among users, and many people have turned to alternative platforms. Young users in particular are trying to continue their digital communication by switching to other social media platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat. Experts predict that this ban on Instagram will also have significant impacts on the digital marketing and advertising sector.