Türkiye threatens to block Telegram – media

The messaging app has been ignoring Ankara’s requests to shut down channels selling child porn and drugs, Takvim newspaper claims

Türkiye could be set to block Telegram over the messaging app’s alleged failure to cooperate with the country’s authorities, Takvim newspaper has claimed. The company has reportedly not responded to more than 1,000 notifications issued by Türkiye’s Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK).

On Saturday, Ankara said it had restored access to another popular social media platform, Instagram, following a nine-day ban imposed earlier this month over cases of alleged censorship.

Türkiye has also temporarily blocked several other platforms and websites in the past. In 2014, the country’s authorities banned Twitter and YouTube for two weeks and two months, respectively. Wikipedia was declared off limits in 2017 until the ban was lifted in 2020 pursuant to a ruling by Türkiye’s Constitutional Court.

In an article on Sunday, Takvim claimed that the BTK had repeatedly reached out to Telegram, demanding that it shut down a number of channels on which drugs and pornographic content, including videos involving children, were being sold. Officials in Ankara have also reportedly taken issue with channels that supposedly facilitate illegal gambling and prostitution.

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The newspaper reported that the messaging app had so far refused to disclose the identities of the subscribers and administrators of such channels with the Turkish authorities.

According to the Daily Sabah, there are around eight million Telegram users in Türkiye, making it one of the messaging app’s biggest markets.

In early August, the BTK restricted access to Instagram after Fahrettin Altun, the country’s communications chief, criticized the Meta-owned network for supposedly preventing “people from posting condolences” following the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in a suspected Israeli strike in Tehran late last month.

Altun claimed at the time that “this is a very clear and obvious attempt at censorship,” vowing to take a stand against social media platforms that “serve the global system of exploitation and injustice.”

On Saturday, however, Turkish authorities lifted the ban, with Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu saying in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that Instagram had “promised to work together to meet our demands regarding catalog crimes and on censorship imposed on users.”