Turkey Threatens to Block Twitter Again

Turkey officials plan to ban Twitter unless the social media network blocks a newspaper story involving its intelligence agencies, according to the New York Times.

A local court said the newspaper violated national security laws by posting documents about a military police raid on Turkish Intelligence Agency trucks traveling to Syria in January 2014. The newspaper claimed that the intelligence agency`s trucks carried weapons for extremists fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Turkish government officials denied the information, saying the transport was carrying humanitarian aid for the Turkmen minority in Syria.

Twitter, Google and Facebook complied with the court order and removed related content, but the BirGun newspaper continued to post on Twitter.

Twitter refused to block the newspaper`s account, but erased messages allegedly linking to leaked documents in which the military police were said to have confirmed that the trucks contained weapons and explosives.

“Out of the almost 60,000 tweets on the account, Twitter withheld access in Turkey to the small number of tweets that discussed the national security issue referenced in the order,” said Nu Wexler, a Twitter spokesman. “We continue to work diligently to protect the rights of our users and preserve access for millions of Twitter users in Turkey.”