Turkey has restored access to Instagram after it remained blocked for nine days over allegations that the platform did not comply with the country’s laws.
The announcement of Instagram’s restoration was made on Saturday by Abdulkadir Uraloglu, the Turkish minister for transport and infrastructure. In a statement on X, the minister confirmed that Instagram was being restored following talks with the app’s parent company, Meta Platforms.
Instagram was blocked in Turkey on August 2, 2024. Although the minister did not explicitly state the reasons behind the blockage, he said the platform disregarded “legal rules and public sensitivities” and demanded corrections to the “shortcomings” in Meta’s policies.
The minister has confirmed talks with Meta and claimed that their “demands, especially regarding catalog crimes, will be met and they have promised to work together on the censorship imposed on users”. No crimes have been specified, however. (The minister’s statements have been translated via Google.)
NetBlocks, which tracks internet outages and platform takedowns globally, said on August 11 that Instagram was being restored in Turkey after the authorities negotiated “the removal of terrorist content and the reinstatement of unfairly closed accounts”.
According to reports, before Instagram was suspended, a top Turkish official had accused Meta of taking down posts expressing condolence for the assassinated Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh.
Turkey is reportedly Instagram’s fifth largest market in the world with over 57 million active users.
