Twitter, Facebook vow to fight Turkish banApril 7, 2015 - 17:31 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Twitter and Facebook have vowed to fight a Turkish ban that briefly blocked access to social media sites this week, a clampdown critics said was further evidence of Ankara's growing authoritarianism, according to Reuters. Turkey has taken a tough stance on social media under President Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party he founded, temporarily stopping access to some sites last year and making it easier for authorities to introduce such bans. In the second half of last year alone, Turkey filed more than five times more content-removal requests to Twitter than any other country, data from the micro-blogging company shows. Both Twitter and video-sharing service YouTube were inaccessible for hours on Monday, after a Turkish court ordered the removal of images of a prosecutor held at gunpoint by far-left militants. Facebook, the first of the three to comply with the court order, appeared to have avoided the ban. Representatives of both Twitter and Facebook have said they would launch an appeal. Google, which owns YouTube, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "The laws are being used as weapons by authorities," said Mehmet Ali Koksal, a lawyer specializing in IT cases. "The government says 'I will shut you down if you don't remove so and so'. If this were between two people it would be called blackmail." A spokesman for Erdogan said on Monday that a prosecutor had demanded the ban because some media organizations had acted "as if they were spreading terrorist propaganda" in sharing the images of the hostage-taking. The prosecutor in the photos, Mehmet Selim Kiraz, was killed in a shoot-out between hostage-takers and police last week. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | Turkey extends military presence in Azerbaijan The Turkish parliament has adopted a bill submitted by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to extend the mandate of Turkish troops. Russia to begin assessing migrant workers' speaking skills Rosobrnadzor is planning to change the Russian language exam for migrant workers and include an assessment of speaking skills Armenian, Saudi Foreign Minister meet in Riyadh The two commended the positive dynamics of the development of political dialogue between Armenia and Saudi Arabia Pashinyan: Azerbaijan’s proximity shouldn’t worry border residents At the same time, he said that he “does not guarantee [the security of villagers] one hundred percent”. |