By Emre Peker And Sam Schechner
ISTANBUL--A Turkish court temporarily blocked access to Twitter
and YouTube--and threatened to ban Google as well--for failing to
remove content related to a deadly hostage crisis last week,
marking the second time in a year that Turkey has blocked the
social-media platforms.
The blackout came Monday after an Istanbul court ordered the
U.S. companies, as well as Facebook Inc. and dozens of other local
and foreign websites, to take down images, videos and voice
recordings linked to the hostage crisis. It threatened a blockade
for noncompliance.
By Monday evening, Turkish authorities restored access to both
YouTube and Twitter after saying that the platforms had fulfilled
the court's demands. In a second decision issued late Monday, the
court directed Google Inc., YouTube's owner, to remove the content
from its search engine, or else it would also be blocked. A person
close to the company said Google was continuing to work to keep its
services accessible to users.
Facebook was hit by a brief interruption in some parts of the
country on Monday, but also came back online after complying with
the court order. Facebook said it was appealing the order, and a
person familiar with the matter said Twitter planned to follow
suit.
The court's decision stems from last week's deadly standoff at
an Istanbul courthouse between Turkish security forces and
communist militants. After taking Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz
hostage, the militants published photos of Mr. Kiraz on social
media with a gun to his head and the Marxist-Leninist group's
yellow-starred red flags in the background.
The pictures of the prosecutor were widely distributed online
and some newspapers printed them on their cover, prompting
criticism from the government and prosecutors. Mr. Kiraz died of
gunshot wounds sustained in the standoff. Istanbul's chief
prosecutor said an autopsy showed he had been shot by bullets fired
at close range by the militants.
"These broadcasts have been shared as propaganda for the armed
terrorist organization," the court said in its decision, adding
that their publication endangered public safety.
The court orders mark the latest effort in Turkey to censor
content on the Internet and comes as opposition lawmakers and
activists say the government is seeking to muzzle dissent before
critical June parliamentary elections.
Social media has emerged as a key platform for Turkish critics
to organize, share information, and mount publicity campaigns
against the government. After protesters used the web to organize
nationwide anti-government demonstrations in 2013, President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan labeled Twitter "a menace to society" and promised
to "root out" social media from Turkey.
The Ankara government has adopted a series of draconian Internet
laws in the past year--most recently in March--allowing authorities
to shutter websites for up to 48 hours without court orders to
protect individual rights, national security and public order.
Ankara's Western allies, led by the U.S. and the European
Union--which Turkey seeks to join--have also criticized the
country's Internet laws, saying they amount to a crackdown on
dissent.
"Turkey blocks social media all together, another
disproportionate response restricting press freedom, free speech,"
European Parliament Member Marietje Schaake said in a tweet after
Monday's ban.
Turkey's clash with tech firms also is latest flashpoint in a
broader conflict between governments and U.S. tech firms over how
and where to draw the line between free speech and illegal content
in an age when both teenagers and terrorists carry smartphones.
Yeliz Candemir contributed to this article.
At stake is Silicon Valley firms' ability to protect their users
while expanding their businesses overseas amid increasing
government requests for content removal and surveillance help
online.
"If you're social media, you're both trying to do what's right
and keep your company going," said Zeynep Tufekci, a professor at
the University of North Carolina who studies the interaction of
technology and society. "We're trying to deal with this unruly
thing that has become the public sphere."
With terrorist organizations such as Islamic State using social
media as recruiting tools, the issue has become a leading priority
in Europe--home to the many of the foreign militants fighting wars
in Syria and Iraq.
Technology firms say they remove content that is illegal or
violates their own terms of service. But they also say they are
wary of setting precedents that could oblige them to remove content
that could stifle debate.
Government demands are mounting: Requests to remove content on
Twitter tripled worldwide to 1,229 in 2014 from the previous year,
with Turkey leading the charge. Removals of Facebook content at the
request of governments increased in the second half of 2014 by 32%
compared with the same period in 2013. After the January attacks in
Paris, France flagged more than 25,000 pieces of terrorist content
online for removal.
Many Turkish users skirted the ban on Monday, using
virtual-private networks, or VPNs, that obscure the country of
access to allow the use of the social-media platforms. Within an
hour, the hashtag "Twitter is blocked in Turkey" started trending
globally on the platform, surging past 100,000 mentions.
Twitter's global public-policy team tweeted after Monday's ban
that the company was "working to restore access" in Turkey. After
last year's blackout, the micro-blogging site held a series of
meetings with Turkish officials, agreeing to implement court
decisions more efficiently.
In addition to social-media platforms, the court decision also
targeted websites that printed photographs of Mr. Kiraz with one of
his captors, including leading Turkish daily Hurriyet, the NTV news
channel, opposition newspapers Cumhuriyet and Sozcu, as well as
international news organizations, such as the U.K.'s The
Independent.
"This is about the publication of the martyred prosecutor's
images on social media," Turkish presidency spokesman Ibrahim Kalin
said shortly after the ban went into effect Monday. "It is
unacceptable for certain media organizations to publish these
photos despite all the warnings, as if they were engaged in
terrorism propaganda."
Write to Emre Peker at emre.peker@wsj.com and Sam Schechner at
sam.schechner@wsj.com
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