The day before, the country criticized Instagram for massively deleting posts expressing condolences on the death of Hamas leader Ismail Ghani.
Turkey has blocked access to Instagram, according to the local information regulator (via Reuters).
The statement did not mention any reasons or the likely duration of the blocking, while on Wednesday, Turkish officials actively criticized the social network. In particular, the head of communications for the Turkish president, Fahrettin Altun, mentioned «unfair» blocking of posts expressing condolences over the murder of Ismail Ghania, a Palestinian politician and one of the leaders of Hamas.
«This is censorship in its purest form», — Altun wrote on X, adding that Instagram did not cite policy violations in its actions.
Meta, which owns Instagram, has not yet provided any comments on the blocking or Altun’s statements. The decision to ban the social network was published on August 2 on the website of the Turkish Information Technology and Communications Authority.
Turkey criticizes Israel’s war in Gaza and does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization. Previously, the local government has restricted access to popular social media platforms during terrorist incidents and major natural disasters, mainly for security reasons.
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