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Turkey has become the first country to impose a ban on access to Wattpad, a popular digital publishing platform with over 90 million monthly users worldwide, according to the Freedom of Expression Association’s (İFÖD) EngelliWeb initiative.
The initiative reported on Tuesday that access from Turkey to the Canadian story writing and reading website was banned by a decision by the Ankara 10th Penal Court of Peace on July 12. The ban, the exact reasons for which have not been disclosed by the authorities, has been in effect since Tuesday.
Professor Yaman Akdeniz, founder of İFÖD and a faculty member at İstanbul Bilgi University law school who’s an expert in IT law, said on X that Turkey has become the first country to block access to Wattpad.
“It is not yet clear whether Wattpad was blocked to ‘protect children from harmful content’ or to ‘protect public order’ in Turkey, the country of bans,” Akdeniz added.
Meşhur okuma ve yazma platformu Wattpad'i herhalde Dünyada ilk erişime engelleyen ülke olduk. Yasaklar ülkesi Türkiye'de henüz "çocukları zararlı içeriklerden korumak" mı yoksa "kamu düzenini korumak" için @wattpad erişime engellendi, belli değil. https://t.co/ZUBLRtjMl2
— Yaman Akdeniz (@cyberrights) July 16, 2024
This was not the first time the government has blocked access to popular social media platforms. X, formerly Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have all been subjected to restrictions. Most recently, Ekşi Sözlük, one of the country’s most popular social media websites, and popular streaming platform Twitch were blocked by Turkey’s Telecommunications Authority (BTK).
Turkey, where internet freedom has steadily declined over the past decade, ranks among the “not free” countries concerning online freedoms, according to a report released by the US-based nonprofit Freedom House in October.
The Free Web Turkey 2023 Internet Censorship Report also showed on Friday that Turkey banned access to 219,059 URLs, including 197,907 domain names, 14,680 news articles, 5,641 social media posts and 743 social media accounts, in 2023. The news articles predominantly cover allegations of corruption and misconduct often implicating public officials and individuals with close ties to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).