The platform had been blocked since the morning of August 2nd (Representational)
Istanbul:
Turkey began unblocking Instagram on Saturday night after depriving millions of users of access for nine days.
“Following our negotiations with Instagram representatives, we will unblock access from 9:30 pm (6:30 pm GMT), after they have agreed to respond to our demands,” Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on X.
Access to Instagram began to gradually return after this period, AFP reporters noted.
“From the beginning, we wanted social media platforms to respect the laws of the Republic,” insisted Uraloglu.
The platform had been blocked since the morning of August 2nd for reasons that were never fully explained.
On Saturday night, the minister cited “content-related violations,” adding that Instagram had refused to delete thousands of posts involving “gambling, drugs and child abuse.”
Meta, owner of Instagram, denied not having cooperated, saying it removed almost 2,500 posts in the first half of the year at the request of Turkish authorities.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, accused Instagram of blocking condolence messages for Ismael Haniyeh, political leader of the Palestinian group Hamas and a close ally of Erdogan.
Haniyeh was killed in Tehran last month in an attack blamed on Israel.
Between 60 and 70 percent of Turkey’s 85 million people have an Instagram account, and about $57 million in business is done on the site every day, according to Emre Ekmekci, vice president of an e-commerce association.
Access to the online game Roblox, particularly popular in Turkey, remained blocked for a fourth day on Saturday night.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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