Turkey blocks Twitter briefly following a deadly bombing incident in the town of Suruc on Monday, July 20. This, according to reports, in order to prevent images of the said bombing from spreading in the micro-blogging website.
The bombing in the town of Suruc killed 32 people.
The government of Turkey also blocked Twitter to prevent Twitter users from calling for protests against the Turkish government.
Shortly after Turkey blocked Twitter, the ban was lifted after the micro-blogging site deleted images of the said incident, as per Turkish government's request.
According to Huffington Post, an official speaking on condition of anonymity due to Turkish rules that bar officials from speaking to journalists without authorization, said that the Tweets were removed due to "malicious content, including hate speech, in line with the court order."
A Suruc court ruling on Wednesday ordered the ban on the publication of images relating to the bombing incident. It also ruled that access be barred to websites that do not comply with such rules.
Since the bombing, protests have been staged in multiple cities in Turkey, with demonstrators blaming the government and condemning the said incident.
The brief Twitter ban was the government's usage of a highly controversial law passed by the Turkish Parliament which allows the government's Telecommunications Board to shut down websites over anything that the government considers as a violation of privacy.
Last year, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the wants to completely "eradicate Twitter."
"We will eradicate Twitter," Erdoğan said. "The international community can say this, can say that. I don't care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is,"
"Twitter, mwitter!" he added.
Shortly after that, Turkey blocked Twitter, anchoring on four court orders as basis for barring the site.
Currently, there are about 10 million Twitter users based in Turkey.
