Elon Musk denounced after X agrees to Turkey’s censorship requests
Rights groups and journalists have criticised X owner and executive chairman Elon Musk after the social media platform complied with a Turkish government request to block scores of accounts in the country, including a number of prominent journalists and news outlets.
According to Turkish freedom of expression organisation IFOD, an access ban on 126 accounts requested by the government was approved by a single decision of a criminal court in Ankara on 5 February on the grounds of “protecting national security and public order”.
Those blocked are largely individuals and outlets associated with the Gulenist movement – blamed by Turkey for the 2016 coup attempt – or with pro-Kurdish, left-wing and liberal leanings.
Some of the most high-profile outlets blocked in the country include the left-leaning Arti Gercek and Yeni Yasam, the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya News Agency (MA) and the women-focused Kurdish outlet Jin News.
Among the journalists blocked are the Berlin-based Hayko Bagdat – who has more than one million followers on X – and Metin Cihan, an independent journalist who has focused on Turkey’s trade relations with Israel during the Gaza war.
Bagdat, an Armenian-Turkish journalist who has lived in Germany since 2016 due to threats and harassment in Turkey, told Middle East Eye that authoritarianism was becoming commonplace around the world and Musk was helping enable it.
He added that platforms like X had allowed Turkish dissidents to maintain a presence in the country from exile, which “greatly unsettles” the government.
‘Recent developments indicate that Elon Musk’s X platform has effectively become the long arm of the law enforcement agencies in Turkey‘
– Yaman Akdeniz, IFOD founder
“Despite having 1.2 million followers and a verified account on the X platform, where I have been active for 20 years, my account was shut down by a local court decision,” he said.
“In a world where a figure like Elon Musk is influential, we need to repeatedly discuss the concept of freedom of expression.”
Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist”, has overseen a huge increase in approvals for removal requests submitted by governments since taking over the company formerly known as Twitter in 2022.
According to a transparency report X published last year and a Washington Post review of past disclosure data, the social media site acted on 71 percent of legal requests it received to remove content in the first half of 2024, up 20 percent from its previous reported figure in 2021.
The report said X had taken action in 68 percent of the cases requested by Turkey, which amounted to 9,364 requests in the first half of 2024.
“Under previous management, Twitter would challenge censorship decisions and resist government orders, particularly regarding accounts belonging to journalists and media outlets,” IFOD founder Yaman Akdeniz told MEE.
“However, recent developments indicate that Elon Musk’s X platform has effectively become the long arm of the law enforcement agencies in Turkey.
“As X swiftly complies with government takedown requests and withholds accounts in Turkey, this pattern will likely continue, further eroding free expression in the country.”
For many years, Turkey has regularly been described as the world’s worst jailer of journalists by media freedom organisations.
On 6 January, the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), a Turkish rights group monitoring press freedom, said there were at least 30 journalists and media workers in prison and four under house arrest in the country.
It said it monitored 281 freedom of expression trials in 2024 involving 1,856 defendants, 366 of whom were journalists.
The crackdown on critical journalists escalated after the 2016 coup attempt.
Last month, prosecutors opened an investigation against the Istanbul bar association on charges of “spreading terrorist propaganda”, accusing it of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group who have fought a guerilla war with Turkey since 1984.
The probe was opened after lawyers called for an investigation into the death of two Kurdish journalists – Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Dastan – in Syria in late December in a suspected Turkish drone strike.
Since the ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December, Ankara has stepped up its campaign against Kurdish-led groups who control much of the north of the country. Turkey accuses these groups of being an outgrowth of the PKK.
“In Turkey, the Erdogan regime continues to attack opponents every day with new court rulings and police pressures to permanently silence democratic and equality pursuits,” Bagdat told MEE.
“At the same time, developments in Syria are additionally leading to the targeting of sensitive voices regarding the Kurdish issue.”
