Marchingontogether
TK Veteran
Just a few days after the Turkish government blocked the popular microblogging service over failing to remove allegations of the country’s Prime Minister corruption from Twitter, a Turkish court ruled that the national block was illegal. However, the government still wants to keep it until after the election.
Screen_Hunter_02_Apr_04_21_04.jpg
The government may be disappointed with the court ruling, because it has been trying to silence the social network from talking about a government corruption scandal on the threshold of the elections.
The citizens of Turkey were expected to have their access to the service restored, as soon as the court’s stay of execution reached the country’s telecommunication authority (TIB). The government decided to ban Twitter after anonymous audio recordings were posted there to allege corruption inside the country’s government.
However, even when Twitter was blocked by all the ISPs, people still used the service through virtual private networks and software like Tor which used cryptography to mask a PC’s location.
The initial block of the social network was based on 3 court orders which ordered Twitter to remove the abovementioned material from the website, which the company says were not provided prior to the blackout. Moreover, the company claimed it did comply with two of the three requests from the country’s government. The problem was that the 3rd order stifled political speech, and Twitter had to petition the Turkish court on behalf of users in order to reverse the request. The company also used a “Country Withheld Content” instrument which blocked Twitter accounts in Turkey, at the same time leaving them visible to the rest of the world.
It is no surprise to learn that the Turkish government is planning to appeal the recent court ruling and keep the block active until after the national election.
Screen_Hunter_02_Apr_04_21_04.jpg
The government may be disappointed with the court ruling, because it has been trying to silence the social network from talking about a government corruption scandal on the threshold of the elections.
The citizens of Turkey were expected to have their access to the service restored, as soon as the court’s stay of execution reached the country’s telecommunication authority (TIB). The government decided to ban Twitter after anonymous audio recordings were posted there to allege corruption inside the country’s government.
However, even when Twitter was blocked by all the ISPs, people still used the service through virtual private networks and software like Tor which used cryptography to mask a PC’s location.
The initial block of the social network was based on 3 court orders which ordered Twitter to remove the abovementioned material from the website, which the company says were not provided prior to the blackout. Moreover, the company claimed it did comply with two of the three requests from the country’s government. The problem was that the 3rd order stifled political speech, and Twitter had to petition the Turkish court on behalf of users in order to reverse the request. The company also used a “Country Withheld Content” instrument which blocked Twitter accounts in Turkey, at the same time leaving them visible to the rest of the world.
It is no surprise to learn that the Turkish government is planning to appeal the recent court ruling and keep the block active until after the national election.