Musk’s X Shuts Down Political Opposition Accounts in Turkey

There are currently riots throughout Turkey after Ekrem İmamoğlu, a key figure in Turkey’s opposition and mayor of its largest city, Istanbul, was arrested earlier this week.

Yusuf Can, coordinator and analyst at the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, told Politico that the majority of the suspended accounts belonged to “grassroots activists” with followers in the low tens of thousands who shared protest locations for students. Many of these demonstrations are taking place near or at universities.

Many of the opposition accounts appear to have been fully suspended, while others appear to be restricted only within the country, Politico notes. The recent news may contradict Musk’s repeated claims to be a “free speech absolutist.”

According to X’s transparency report, it complied with 86% of Turkey’s government requests to take down content in the second half of 2024. Turkey made more requests to remove content than any other country except Japan and made more requests than the entire European Union or the whole of North America.

In May 2023, ahead of the Turkish presidential election, X restricted access to some content in Turkey “in response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey,” the company’s global government affairs team said at the time.

In response to criticism of that decision, Musk tweeted: “The choice is to have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?”