You may remember that the Turkish government is quite trigger happy when it comes to banning games, and even online services, often multiple times. The latest to be targeted by the ban hammer is Wikipedia.
It all began at 8 AM local time on Saturday, April 29, when the "independent, non-partisan transparency project" dubbed Turkey Blocks, found out that access to "all language versions" of the online encyclopedia had been blocked by the majority of ISPs, with only TTNet making certain subdomains available:
As it turned out, the reason why it was inaccessible was due to government intervention, as the website spat out an "nginx http 404" error, indicative of filtering:
Then, Turkey Blocks uncovered that the decision to block Wikipedia was taken via a provisional administrative measure after taking into consideration Law Nr. 5651, Turkey"s so-called "Internet law". With that in mind, this move had no court order attached to it, which would need to happen within 24 hours (according to the law itself), for the decision to be enforceable.
Not long after, the necessary court order also showed up, receiving approval from Ankara"s 1st Criminal Court of Peace:
According to The Independent, talks have been initiated between Turkey and Wikipedia in relation to portraying the country as a "supporter of terror". Turkish media says that officials call for Wikipedia to open an office in the country, and "not be part of the blackout operation against Turkey". Upon meeting demands and removal of "terror-related content", access to the site would be restored, according to the same Turkish news outlets.
At this point in time, if you try to access Wikipedia in Turkey and you do not use a VPN, you"ll be confronted with a "this site can"t be reached" error.
Source and image: Turkey Blocks