Hours after Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised to “eradicate” Twitter in order to demonstrate the “the power of the Turkish Republic” on March 20, the ban went into effect. Users signing in from Turkey saw a message from the country’s telecom regulator that the site was blocked for their “protection.”
But, then, a curious thing happened. Twitter in Turkey didn’t fade to black. In fact, many users in Turkey are still tweeting away, at the reported rate of 17,000 tweets a minute. There’s been little disruption to the service, this journalist for the Hurriyet Daily News claims:
despite the ban, my #turkish timeline is busier than ever.People were ready, change DNS/use VPN and continue to access twitter in #Turkey
— Irem Koker (@ikoker) March 20, 2014In fact, the block itself quickly became the most-discussed topic … on Twitter in Turkey:
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Even some of the prime minister’s allies seemed to take the ban less-than-seriously … which they conveyed in messages on Twitter:
#Breakingnews: #Erdogan confidant+twitter addict-Ankara Mayor M. Gocek sends smile to world #twitterisblockedinturkey pic.twitter.com/hwXkkzwNwU
— Louis Fishman (@Istanbultelaviv) March 21, 2014International activists and Twitter personalities chimed in with messages of support, like this Egyptian Twitter personality with over 50,000 followers:
From Iranians to Turks: welcome to the club. #TwitterisblockedinTurkey
— The Big Pharaoh (@TheBigPharaoh) March 21, 2014And famous foreigners offered help, again on Twitter, though these offers earned some derision. (After all, if you’re blocked from Twitter, how would you see the message?):
Peak Streisand. :-) RT @MiaFarrow: Hey there friends in Turkey! You can stay on twitter via VPN and Hotspot” #TwitterblockedinTurkey
— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) March 21, 2014Right now, Erdoğan is grappling with a fact that may confound politicians for years to come—Twitter and other social networks, once unleashed on a population, are difficult to stamp out. Erdoğan’s ban comes after Twitter and other social media were used to circulate voice recordings, allegedly of him and his son, discussing business bribes and other indications of corruption and poor governance. Last summer, dozens were detained in Turkey for “inciting riots” after tweeting in support of anti-government protests in Gezi Park.
The detentions seem to have done little to deter citizens from using Twitter. As of October 2013, Turkey was one of the social network’s top-ten markets, according to data from Peer Reach, which analyzes Twitter use.
Turkey’s Internet-savvy, youthful population (the median age is 29) has proven adept at getting around the recent block, using VPNs that mask their Internet address so they appear to be coming from another country, along with other workarounds such as an SMS option offered by Twitter itself.
