Turkey Restores Instagram Access

Turkey has officially restored access to Instagram, ending a period of restricted service on the popular social media platform

After barring the app on August 2, Turkey appears to have restored access to Instagram, which Meta owns.

Abdulkadir Uraloglu, Turkey’s minister of transport and infrastructure, today announced that the prohibition would be lifted at 9:30 p.m. Turkish time.

According to NetBlocks, a cybersecurity monitoring company, “Live metrics indicate that Instagram is being gradually reintroduced on internet providers in Turkey due to the negotiations between authorities and Meta regarding the removal of terrorist content and the reinstatement of unfairly closed accounts.”

A Turkish official accused Instagram of censoring condolence posts regarding the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which led to the ban.

Today, Uraloglu reported that the Turkish government had blocked Instagram because the company “failed to respond to our inquiries due to the policies it implemented within the context of catalog crimes” (translation via Google).

He also stated that Instagram has agreed to collaborate on the censorship that affects users and that our demands, particularly those related to catalog offenses, will be addressed following their discussions.

The offenses or content censorship discussed in Uraloglu’s post are not specified. Instagram did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.