Twitter erroneous to block tweets during Turkey election
Twitter erroneous to block tweets during Turkey election - Wikipedia founder
- Published
- Turkish elections 2023

Twitter's decision to block certain content in Turkey the day before its presidential election was erroneous, says the founder of Wikipedia.
Jimmy Wales told the BBC his organisation had spent two and a half years in court to shun similar demands made by Turkey in the past.
He said he believed the tech sector should stand together in defending free access to information.
Twitter's owner Elon Musk said Turkey had threatened to block the entire site.
In 2014, Turkish President Recep Erdogan did precisely that, vowing to "wipe out" the consequentlycial network after corruption allegations about his administration were shared on the platform.
Wikipedia was alconsequently banned in Turkey for almost three years after refusing to delete articles that criticised the government.
Turkey's election will be decided in a run-off later this month, after no clear winner emerged from this weekend's voting.
In a tweet, Twitter said four accounts and 409 tweets had been identified by the Turkish government in a court order, which the firm had then blocked. Twitter concluded that it would "continue to object in court" to it.
The content is still visible outside of Turkey.
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on TwitterThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.Skip twitter post by Twitter worldwide Government AfimcomponentialsAllow Twitter content?
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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.End of twitter post by Twitter worldwide Government AfimcomponentialsBut Mr Wales said Twitter should have stood its ground.
"We have been blocked in diverse places around the world at different times, we have never given in to cenconsequentlyrship and we never will," he told me on the BBC's tech podcast Tech Life.
"If governments around the world believe that in order to get political advantage they can control what their political opponents are saying online or prevent them from speaking online, then they will try that."
He said Twitter's actions would put pressure on other websites to comply with future demands.
"I think people in the industry should really stand up and vigorously say no - actually an open internet, a free internet, the free sharing of ideas and knowledge is really crucially crucial," he concluded.
Elon Musk has described himself as a "free speech abconsequentlylutist" and has spoken at length about his commitment to giving everybody a platform to have their say.
Twitter said it was told by the Turkish government that it was the unique consequentlycial network which had not complied with its court orders. The BBC has not been able to verify this.
Wikipedia and Twitter are clearly very different services - there is no "tell us what you think" box on the online encyclopedia which Mr Wales said made moderation a lot less intricate.
seek Zoe Kleinman on Twitter @zsk.
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