Access to Twitter was restored in Turkey on Thursday after being blocked for a dozen hours on the country’s main mobile phone providers, amid growing criticism of the government’s response to the earthquake that struck Turkey and Turkey. Syria.
The restoration, noted by an AFP journalist in Turkey, came shortly after a tweet from the boss of the social network, Elon Musk, according to which “Twitter has been informed by the Turkish government that access will be reactivated shortly “.
The Internet governance watchdog Netblocks.org, which had warned of the outage, confirmed the restoration of the service.
Since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit the country on Monday, Turkish social media has been flooded with messages from people complaining about the slow deployment of relief efforts.
Turkey’s Deputy Infrastructure Minister, Omer Fatih Sayan, said in a tweet on Thursday that he spoke with two senior Twitter executives, John Hughes and Ronan Costello.
“We reminded them of their responsibility towards our country following this disaster”, he underlined, specifying to wish more cooperation in the “fight against misinformation”.
Netblocks.org said the filtering risked “impacting rescue operations” for victims, adding that Turkey had “a long history of restrictions (in the use) of social media during emergencies. National and Security Incidents”.
During the shutdown, access to Twitter remained possible via VPN accounts that masked the location of the user.
Turkish officials have in recent weeks repeatedly issued warnings about the use of social networks ahead of the presidential and legislative elections on May 14, where Mr. Erdogan is seeking a new mandate after 20 years in power.
“We already know everything they want to hide,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition CHP party.
Nationalist opposition Iyi party leader Meral Aksener said Twitter was needed to “relay the needs of earthquake victims”. “What the hell is this?” she added.
The two political leaders are part of the “Table of Six”, the name given to the alliance of six opposition parties which are trying to agree to block the head of state.
Beyond the political sphere, Turkish rock-star Haluk Levent, who has 7.2 million Twitter followers and helps victims, tweeted: “Now what do we do?”
Turkish police have arrested a dozen people since Monday’s earthquake for social media posts criticizing the Turkish government’s handling of the disaster.
Rescuers continue their search in the rubble, even if the chances of survival dwindle for three days, while the toll now exceeds 15,000 dead in Turkey and Syria.