Access to Twitter in Turkey has been limited as thousands of families and rescue teams scramble to cope with the aftermath of Monday’s devastating earthquakes.
(Bloomberg) — Access to Twitter in Turkey has been limited as thousands of families and rescue teams scramble to cope with the aftermath of Monday’s devastating earthquakes.
Restrictions to the social-media platform started Wednesday afternoon and people have since been using proxy internet servers to bypass them, internet watchdog NetBlocks said.
More than 11,600 people have been killed in the twin earthquakes, which struck southeastern Turkey and Syria. Thousands of people remain trapped inside collapsed buildings.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Turks flocked to Twitter to mobilize help and share footage and photos showing the scale of the devastation. Twitter didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
In a tweet, the head of Turkey’s main opposition party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, urged people to start using proxy servers, known as VPNs, to remain connected to Twitter. He accused the government of blocking the site.
The Turkish state has restricted social-media platforms on multiple occasions in the past, tending to cut access during cross-border military operations and terror attacks.
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