Twitter Confirms Censorship Of Content To Remain Operational During Turkey Elections

Twitter confirmed that it took action against four accounts and 409 tweets, as identified by a court order. 

Twitter disclosed that it had received what it believed to be a final warning to restrict its service in Turkey..

Twitter has officially acknowledged that it implemented content restrictions in Turkey ahead of the country's recent presidential election. The official Twitter Global Government Affairs account, released a statement confirming the action taken. It stated, "In order to comply with legal procedures and ensure that Twitter remains accessible to the people of Turkey, we have taken steps to limit access to certain content within Turkey today."

The account clarified that the content would still be accessible to users outside of Turkey and that the account holders had been duly informed about the restrictions.

On May 16, the platform confirmed that it took action against four accounts and 409 tweets, as identified by a court order. 

We are today sharing an update on our approach in Turkey.

We were in negotiation with the Turkish Government throughout last week, who made clear to us Twitter was the only social media service not complying in full with existing court orders.

We received what we believed to be…

— Twitter Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) May 15, 2023

The issue arose when journalist Matthew Yglesias alleged on Saturday that Elon Musk had acquiesced to the Turkish government's request to censor its opponents before the election. Responding to Yglesias, Musk vehemently defended the decision in a tweet, saying, "Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is to either completely throttle Twitter or limit access to certain tweets. Which option would you prefer?"

Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2023

Neither the incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan nor his opponent Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu managed to secure more than 50 per cent of the votes. Consequently, a second round of voting will take place later this month.

Prior to this development, Musk had already announced his intention to step down as Twitter's CEO. He named Linda Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, as his successor.

As mentioned, on May 16, Twitter issued a statement in response to the situation, stating, "Today, we would like to provide an update on our actions in Turkey. Throughout last week, we engaged in negotiations with the Turkish Government, who made it clear that Twitter was the only social media platform not fully complying with existing court orders."

The statement further disclosed that Twitter had received what it believed to be a final warning to restrict its service. Consequently, in order to ensure the availability of Twitter during the election weekend, the platform took action by restricting four accounts and 409 tweets, as mandated by a court order.

Twitter also expressed its concerns regarding freedom of expression, affirming that it would continue to contest the matter in court. However, due to time constraints and the imminent start of the voting process, further legal action was not feasible.

Five court orders had been issued against Twitter in relation to these actions, with Twitter already having objected to four of them. While one objection had been rejected, three others were still under review. Twitter planned to submit its objection to the fifth order on the following day.

To provide transparency, Twitter committed to publishing the court orders and the regulatory authority's correspondence concerning the actions taken by the platform.