Turkey has blocked access to the instant messaging platform Discord following a court decision, as the platform refused to share user information requested by Ankara, Turkish officials announced on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu highlighted the challenges faced by authorities in monitoring and intervening when illegal or criminal content is shared on Discord. "Security personnel cannot go through the content. We can only intervene when users complain to us about content shared there," he told reporters in parliament. Uraloglu added, "Since Discord refuses to share its own information, including IP addresses and content, with our security units, we were forced to block access."
The block comes in the wake of public outrage in Turkey over the murder of two women by a 19-year-old man in Istanbul earlier this month. Social media content revealed that some Discord users subsequently praised the killings, prompting authorities to take action.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc explained that an Ankara court decided to block access to Discord from Turkey due to "sufficient suspicion that crimes of child sexual abuse and obscenity" had been committed by some users on the platform.
Turkey has banned Discord.
And hey I don't love Discord, but that's because too many people use is as a coordination tool when it was designed for gaming communities.
It absolutely should not be banned by any government.
This is why decentralization actually matters.
— abigail carlson (@abigailcarlson_) October 9, 2024
This development follows a similar move by Russia's communications regulator, which blocked Discord on Tuesday for violating Russian law. The platform had previously been fined for failing to remove banned content, according to the TASS news agency.
