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Twitter 'blocked' in Turkey

Summary

21 March 2014

Twitter users in Turkey report that the social media site has been blocked in the country.

This comes after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan attacked the site on Thursday.

Reporter:

James Reynolds

Report

Late at night here in Istanbul, the city's internet users suddenly faced the same problem: none of us could get onto Twitter. 

The apparent blocking of the website is dramatic, but not surprising. Hours before the site went down, Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan mocked Twitter at a public rally. He promised to "wipe out" the site in this country. "The international community can say this or that, I don't care at all," he warned. 

The Turkish government, many of whose officials are regular Twitter users, complained that the website failed to implement court rulings ordering the removal of various links. Those links are thought to be alleged recordings of the prime minister's private phone conversations. The recordings have been widely circulated on Twitter - many internet users believe that conversations reveal evidence of corruption.