Turkey has officially blocked Discord from the country after a court order. The decision was made after the court found that the platform was being used for serious crimes, including child sexual abuse and sharing harmful content.
The ban on the instant messaging platform comes after a shocking incident where two women were murdered in Istanbul. Some people on Discord were reportedly praising the murders, which upset many in Turkey.
Turkey's transport and infrastructure minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said:
"Security personnel cannot go through the content. We can only intervene when users complain to us about content shared there. Since Discord refuses to share its own information, including IP addresses and content, with our security units, we were forced to block access."
Turkish officials were also frustrated because Discord did not share important user information like IP addresses that could have helped them investigate crimes. Turkey's Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said this lack of cooperation left them with no choice but to block the app. According to him, the main reason for the ban is to protect children and young people from harmful content on the platform.
Turkey isn't the only country that has recently banned Discord. Russia also banned Discord recently for similar reasons. The Russian government said that Discord was used to distribute illegal content and the company failed to comply with requests to remove such materials.
Discord has acknowledged the incident:
"We are aware of reports of Discord being unreachable in Russia and Turkey. Our team is investigating these reports at this time"
Turkey had previously banned a lot of other online platforms and services as well, especially when there's political unrest in the country. X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and YouTube are often blocked during politically unstable periods to control the flow of information. Instagram was also blocked in August 2024 without a clear explanation from the Turkish government. Even the video game platform Roblox was blocked due to concerns about content deemed harmful to children.
Via Reuters
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