Turkey's fresh ban pushes social media giants to remove content

Turkish authorities have blocked access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube over their initial refusal to remove photos of a prosecutor who was taken hostage by militants in Istanbul. After hours, the ban on Facebook and Twitter has been been lifted as both websites complied with the court ruling.

A number of Turkey's leading Internet service providers implemented the ban in the afternoon of April 6, an official confirmed after widespread complaints about access problems to the social media websites.

Speaking to daily Hürriyet, Internet Service Providers Union (ESB) Secretary General Bülent Kent stressed that "the procedure continues" as all service providers are expected to implement the ban immediately.

A recent court ruling seen by daily Hürriyet ordered authorities to block a total of 166 websites that published the controversial photos. Beside the world's largest social media websites in the list, there are also specific links to the stories published by Turkish newspapers.

The decision, signed by Bekir Altun, the judge at Istanbul's 1st Criminal Court of Peace, was taken after Istanbul's Chief Public Prosecutor's Office's Terror and Organized Crime Investigation Bureau demanded the ban on news and videos.

The decision stated content removal would be implemented and a possible blockage would be put in place if this was not done.

Tayfun Acarer, the head of the Information and Communications Technologies Authority (BTK), told daily Hürriyet that the ban on Facebook had been lifted after it rapidly complied with the court ruling on April 6.

YouTube.com ran the text of a court ruling on its site saying an "administration measure" had been implemented by the country's telecommunications authority (TIB).
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