 halted its operations in the country after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week gutting the government-run news agency, the Birgün daily reported.){kind=link}
The Turkish edition of US broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) halted its operations in the country after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week gutting the government-run news agency, the Birgün daily reported.
Staff of the Turkish edition of VOA have joined other employees around the world who were put on administrative leave after Trump ordered his administration to reduce several agencies to the minimum required by law under an order titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”
The email accounts of the journalists working for VOA’s Turkish edition have been blocked, and the Turkish edition of the outlet has not posted any new news on its website since March 15.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) slammed the decision, saying it “threatens press freedom worldwide and negates 80 years of American history in supporting a free flow of information.”
VOA Turkish was a multimedia news service. The outlet has built a strong readership in Turkey over the past years with its website and mobile news service along with social media, attracting a high number of users. It has more than 300,000 followers on X and more than 200,000 subscribers on YouTube.
In 2022 Turkey blocked access to VOA Turkish in addition to the Turkish edition of German broadcaster Deutsche Welle after they refused to obtain online broadcasting licenses as demanded by the country’s media watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK).
The move was described by media outlets as an attempt at censorship and at expansion of the Turkish government’s control over domestic media to foreign outlets, which are the only source of free and independent journalism for some people in Turkey, where the majority of the media is controlled by the government.
In response VOA Turkish changed its domain name to voaturkce.com. However, this website was blocked as well by a court decision in 2023.
VOA Turkish is the second media outlet to halt operations in Turkey since last week following the independent news outlet Gazete Duvar, which had to end its services due to economic problems caused primarily by Google algorithm changes.
Since last year some Turkish media outlets have been accusing Google of indirectly censoring independent news organizations through algorithm adjustments that have significantly reduced visibility, with some experiencing traffic losses of more than 90 percent. They say the decline in visitor numbers has deprived these organizations of significant revenue, causing them to suffer financially.
These media outlets operate in a climate of growing pressure and censorship on independent media in Turkey where, according to the RSF, 90 percent of the media is under the control of the government.
Turkey was ranked 158th out of 180 countries in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index by RSF.