Turkey again tops global Twitter censorship list: Report

ISTANBUL

Turkey remains top of Twitter’s global censorship list, according to the latest Twitter Transparency report published on March 21.

According to the report, Turkey issued requests to the social media company to shut down 3,076 accounts. 

A total of 844 shut down requests were transmitted by Turkish courts and 2,232 were conveyed directly by Turkish government and security officials. Upon the requests, Twitter closed 290 accounts and deleted 489 posts.

Turkish authorities also requested that 1,386 individual posts be blocked, with Twitter blocking 414 of them. According to the report, these posts were related to terror attacks and last year’s failed coup attempt, with many including bloody and explicit images.

Twitter also announced that 77 out of the 88 global requests to shut down the accounts of journalists and media outlets came from Turkey. It said it turned down these requests, which it described as a violation of freedom of the media.

Despite Twitter’s statement, 15 individual posts were deleted and 14 accounts belonging to journalists and media outlets in Turkey were banned.

Globally, 13,022 ban requests were conveyed to Twitter, according to the report. 

Twitter also announced that it had banned 376,890 accounts over their relations with radicalism and terrorism.

France followed Turkey with 1,334 requests and took second place on the Twitter transparency list, while Russia requested the shutting down of 522 accounts and the U.S. requested the shutting down of 103 accounts.