Türkiye blocks access to Instagram

ANKARA

Türkiye on Friday blocked access to the Instagram social media network, the national communications authority said, following censorship accusations against the U.S. company by Türkiye's  communications director.

The BTK communications authority said in a post on its website that "instagram.com has been blocked by a decision on the date of 02/08/2024", without adding further details.

Early friday, many users living in Türkiye complained on the X platform that they could not refresh their Instagram feed.

The Turkish presidency's communications director Fahrettin Altun on Wednesday hit out at Meta-owned Instagram, accusing the platform of "impeding people from publishing messages of condolence for the martyr Haniyeh".

Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of the armed Palestinian group Hamas and a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack blamed on Israel.

"This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censure," Altun said on X.

According to Turkish media, there are more than 50 million users signed up to Instagram in Türkiye, out of a population of 85 million.