Turkey will no longer ban Twitter, according to court order

A Reuters report said that on Wednesday, a Turkish court has overturned a ban on Twitter in the country which was blocked by the country's telecoms authority (TIB) and subsequently endorsed by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. It has been said that the decision to block the microblogging service in Tyrkey was due to the revelations by couple of online radicals that seemed to be damaging to Erdogan as he battles a corruption scandal.

Erdogan accused Twitter on Tuesday for threatening the country's national security, insinuating the technology company's alleged non-action over the scandalous tweets that detail the supposed wrongdoing of Erdogan's administration. During rallies leading up to a municipal election on Saturday, Erdogan has repeatedly defended the ban imposed the ban on Twitter, Reuters said.

In a televised remarks in late Tuesday, Erdogan said, with the last statement reportedly said in a strained voice, "Our problem is not Twitter itself but its approach ... The court ruling was conveyed to Twitter. It does not listen to it. You are threatening the national security of my country."

Referring to the decision of an Ankara court, of which supported the legal challenged by the Turkey's Bar Association, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc called out the country's telecoms authority to respect the court order. "We abide by the court rulings, that's what the constitution orders. We may not like them, but we abide by them. If this decision is genuine ... then what TIB needs to do after this is obvious," Arinc commented to reporters, which was also seen in television.

Endgadget, on the other hand, said that the court decision on Wednesday was spurred by the filings of one of its Twitter's parties. Twitter General Counsel Vijaya Gadde said in a blog post on the company's official blog that the microblogging service has filed petitions in attempts to strike down the countrywide ban permanently. Moreover, Twitter revealed that it now has been using its "Country Withheld Content" tool for Turkey to hide tweets by a user whom a public defender believed could be threatened due to the posts.

Tags

Twitter ban in Turkey, Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Twitter Country Withheld Content tool

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