Turkiye said on Saturday, it restored access to the social media platform Instagram after the company agreed to cooperate with authorities to address the government's concerns.
"As a result of our negotiations with Instagram officials, we will lift the access block after they promised to work together to meet our demands regarding crimes and censorship imposed on users," Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said in a post on X.
The ban came after a senior Turkish official accused the platform of blocking condolence posts following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Unlike its Western allies, the country does not consider Hamas as a terror organization. Erdogan, a strong critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, has described the group as a liberation movement.
"Live metrics show Instagram is being restored across the country's main internet providers after a national restriction spanning nine days. This is the country's longest ban on a major social media platform in recent years," Internet monitor NetBlocks said.
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said last week that the platform, which has more than 57 million users in Turkiye, a nation of 85 million people, had been suspended for ignoring demands to remove "criminal content" including "drugs and pedophilia". It was the latest instance of a clampdown on websites in the country, which has a track record of censoring social media and other online platforms, including Roblox and Wattpad.
The ban comes at a delicate moment for Turkish businesses, with domestic demand slowing after the central bank hiked its benchmark interest rate to 50% from 8.5% in less than a year to rein in inflation.
Spending on credit cards, widely used for online purchases, has been flat since April, even for essential items, the central bank said in a report on Thursday. Discretionary spending has been contracting in real terms.
The Instagram access ban seriously affected transactions conducted through social media, constituting 10% of the country's total e-commerce, Emre Ekmekçi from the Association of E-Commerce Operators (ETİD) said. Ekmekçi mentioned that if influencers were included in the e-commerce activities on social media, equating to 930 million Turkish liras per day, the ban would affect a volume of 1.9 billion lira. ETİD estimates that Instagram and other social media platforms per day generate about 930 million Turkish lira ($27 million) worth of e-commerce; just the Instagram access ban cost $11.5 million daily to the Turkish economy.
According to reports by the Turkish Freedom of Expression Association, in the first three months of 2024, 1,043,312 websites and domain names were blocked in the country, with 892,951 different decisions issued by 833 institutions and judgeships. "We are facing a digital fascism that has no tolerance for even the photographs of Palestinian martyrs and bans them immediately," Erdogan said, citing the killing of Haniyeh.
Turkiye’s decision to block access to Instagram has hit entrepreneurs who rely on the popular social media application to sell everything from cookies to bed sheets. Among those unhappy with the ban was 34-year-old Başak, who runs a handmade jewelry design account on Instagram with more than 30,000 followers, saying it had disrupted her business. "Some of my customers contacted me by accessing Instagram through VPNs and other social media platforms, but my chance of accessing new people and potential customers stopped." she said.
Turkish ministries and Erdogan were also seen using the platform after the ban was implemented, continuing to share stories and posts, creating turmoil among Turkish Citizens. Another Turkish court on Aug. 7 banned access to the online gaming platform Roblox with approximately 15 million users based on "the detection of content that may lead to child abuse.” The platform is also accused of inviting people to parties encouraging homosexuality in secret virtual rooms under the pretext of “games” on the platform and engaging in LGBT propaganda, which is an issue that remains particularly sensitive in a country with stringent regulations on LGBT-related content.
An official from the BTK outlined the reasons for the ban as "to incentivize children’s participation in the aforementioned problematic activities" as well as gambling. However, banning Roblox and the Instagram context has infuriated some prominent Turkish figures. The Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, said "After Instagram, it is incomprehensible that access has also been banned to Roblox, an online gaming platform with over 15 million users where users can develop games. Those who make these decisions are minds that are unaware of the new world, economy, and technology."
Turkish parliament’s Digital Media Commission head, ruling AKP deputy Hüseyin Yayman, has demanded an access ban on TikTok as well, arguing, “Our people want TikTok to be banned.” He said he does not see TikTok “as a space of freedom." He continued, “I see it as a place that has completely moved away from human values—not only national values but a total break from universal values and a great alienation.” He called on TikTok “to adopt a broadcasting policy that is in line with Turkiye's moral values, ethical values, traditions, and customs,” claiming that they are against censorship as the AKP government, but “social media platforms should also act per their responsibilities.”
“The TikTok issue is a matter of national security for Turkiye. The posts made to get interaction are so clumsy, so strange, and so detached from reality that it is not possible to approve them. As a commission, we do not have a stance on blocking access to it; this is the responsibility of BTK,” he argued. Yayman previously said, “Social media in Turkiye has unfortunately become the center of the devil and evil.”
Prof. Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, one of the founders of the Freedom of Expression Association (IFÖD), evaluated the Instagram and Roblox bans that Turkiye has recently implemented for Euronews Turkish as “It can be said that there is serious information pollution and even disinformation. On the one hand, the huge Instagram platform was blocked from access in the country by an administrative measure taken by the BTK President in terms of crimes including obscenity, sexual abuse of children, and insulting Atatürk, and there are 10 different types of crimes,” said Akdeniz. “However, there is neither terrorist propaganda among these crimes nor a provision that would prevent a platform like Meta from removing certain content by implementing its internal policies. Therefore, the political demands and the decision taken on paper do not conflict.” The academic also said, “Moreover, the administrative measure decision taken by the BTK President has not been shared with the public, and as far as I know, this decision has not even been sent to Meta as it was decided.”
Expressing that “Muslim countries should create their own Swift codes independently of world Zionism," Fatih Erbakan, the Chairman of the New Welfare Party (YRP), said that social media should be implemented by “Muslim countries like Turkiye," even though the country is declared secular in its constitution. Erbakan said, “We need to have our social media platforms. Otherwise, when you close them, it is impossible to get a result.” He continued by stating that to prevent people from using banned networks with services such as VPN, ”local national systems in the field of social media and common platforms with the Islamic world.” is needed. In a joint statement, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Freedom of Expression Association (IFÖD) stated that “the arbitrary decision by the authorities to block access to Instagram violated the rights of millions of users to freedom of expression and access to information” in Turkiye.
The nine-day block, which severely impacted e-commerce and small businesses, highlights the significant economic and social consequences of such measures. While the government's concerns about content related to crimes and national values are at the forefront, the incident also raises critical questions about freedom of expression and the role of social media platforms in moderating content. As the country continues to navigate these complex dynamics, the balance between regulation and digital freedom will likely remain a contentious issue.