Internet monitoring group Turkey Block reports that Turkey has restricted access to Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube across the country since 1:20AM there (UTC+2).
Connections to those services are being throttled or slowed down drastically by internet service providers, rendering them inaccessible.
Confirmed: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube blocked by throttling in #Turkey – developing incidenthttps://t.co/XA9JZaxn54 pic.twitter.com/3sAjwikGY5
— Turkey Blocks (@TurkeyBlocks) November 3, 2016
The shutdown is believed be connected to the overnight detention of 11 Members of Parliament belonging to the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the mainly Kurdish southeast. Salon reports that in the wake of a failed coup in July to overthrow the right-wing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, opposition politicians have warned that the nation’s authoritarian leader is is implementing a slow-motion counter-coup, restructuring the entire government and circumventing democracy.
Ministry of Interior statement confirms 11 HDP MPs have been detained tonight. These are the names pic.twitter.com/9dfLRR3dMA
— Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) November 4, 2016
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Sadly, this is hardly the first time the Turkish government has resorted to blocking internet services in times of strife. Only last month, it blacked out Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and GitHub in an attempt to suppress the leak of emails belonging to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Berat Albayrak.
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