Twitter under fire for restricting content before Turkish presidential election

Twitter is drawing heat for restricting access to some content in Turkey ahead of the country’s presidential election on Sunday, which is headed for a runoff on May 28 after a first round of voting failed to decide the race.

“In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today,” Twitter’s Global Government Affairs department tweeted on Saturday.

Critics say the move amounts to Twitter capitulating to pressure from the government of incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who failed to secure a majority of the vote but said he believes he can still win the race in a runoff election, Turkish daily Turkish Minute reported. 

Twitter accounts belonging to Muhammed Yakut, a Kurdish businessman who has criticized Erdoğan’s regime, and Cevheri Güven, an investigative journalist, were restricted one day before the election, sparking concern that the move could have an effect on the election’s outcome, according to the report. 

Güven has investigated allegations of corruption against Erdoğan. “It’s a disgrace to democracy and freedom of expression that Twitter has caved to Tayyip Erdoğan,” Güven told Turkish Minute.

“We have informed the account holders of this action in line with our policy. This content will remain available in the rest of the world,” Twitter added, tweeting in both English and Turkish. 

Josh Rudolph, head of malign finance at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, an initiative to deter efforts to undermine democracy, asserted that Twitter’s move to restrict some users of its platform in Turkey was politically motivated. 

“Read this as: The autocratic Turkish gov’t. (which shut down Twitter after the earthquake to hide criticism of Erdogan) threatened to sue and shut down Twitter unless it restricts (in some undisclosed way) what Turks see on Twitter amid tomorrow’s election. And Twitter agreed,” Rudolph tweeted Saturday.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who has served as Twitter’s CEO, defended the social media company’s decision to restrict some accounts in Turkey, suggesting that the entire platform was at risk of being made inaccessible in Turkey.

“The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” he said.