(Bloomberg) -- Turkey’s internet regulator blocked access to Instagram after a senior aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the social media platform for “censorship” of posts related to Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh’s death.
The Information and Communication Technologies Authority didn’t give a reason for the move. Instagram and its parent Meta Platforms Inc. didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Instagram.com was inaccessible in Turkey as of Friday morning. Some users reported that the mobile app didn’t refresh with new content and gave an error message.
Turkey is a fierce critic of Israel’s war in Gaza and doesn’t see Hamas as a terror organization. On Wednesday, the Presidency’s communications chief Fahrettin Altun accused Instagram of “actively preventing people from posting messages of condolences for the passing of Hamas leader Haniyeh without citing any policy violations.”
The nation declared Friday a day of mourning over Haniyeh’s death and flags are flown at half-mast, including at diplomatic missions abroad. That prompted Israel to summon the Turkish envoy for a reprimand.
The Turkish government has restricted access to popular social media platforms in the past during terror incidents and major natural disasters, mostly citing security reasons.
The internet regulator has the authority to slash bandwidth under several conditions and social media platforms are required to have local representatives. The government’s tighter grip over the platforms has worried human rights organizations, opposition politicians and other critics, who say it diminishes freedom of expression.
--With assistance from Patrick Sykes.
(Updates starting in second paragraph, adds Israel Foreign Ministry’s reaction.)
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