Ahead of Turkey's May 14 presidential election, Twitter restricts access to some content “in response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available”

Twitter announced on Friday that it's blocking some content in Turkey ahead of Sunday's presidential election in the country.

Forbes 2023-05-14 Matt Novak

Context & Ripple Effects

Turkey's pressure on major platforms has repeatedly paired content demands with the threat or reality of wider service disruption, including a 2015 demand for Twitter to block a newspaper account and temporary restrictions affecting several platforms during the 2016 coup attempt. Twitter's subsequent decision to establish a Turkish legal entity put it more directly within the country's social-media compliance framework.

The election-period action matters because it shows the practical trade-off created by that framework: narrower content restrictions can be used to preserve broader platform availability.

First-order effects

Users in Turkey lose access to the unspecified restricted material at a politically sensitive moment, while Twitter keeps the wider service operating.
Twitter assumes the immediate credibility cost of enforcing a local legal request rather than risking a broader disruption or block.

Second-order effects

Other platforms operating in Turkey receive a clear signal that local compliance infrastructure may be tested during high-sensitivity events, increasing pressure to maintain similar response processes.
Election-related speech becomes more dependent on platforms' country-specific enforcement choices, rather than a uniform global access standard.

Third-order effects

If this pattern persists, platform access in regulated markets will increasingly be negotiated through localized legal entities and selective restrictions instead of all-or-nothing shutdowns.
That shift could normalize state influence over online information flows through legal-process compliance, while leaving the boundaries of permitted restrictions contested.

The trend: This is one data point in the broader shift toward access-control regulation that makes global social platforms operate under increasingly localized speech rules.

Discussion

@wilkos@mastodon.world Dan Wilkos on mastodon
@Techmeme “We have to block what the administration requires or else they'll block us entirely” says purported “free speech absolutist” who contended buying platform only way to ensure openness of dialog the global town square...
@ampersarnie@mastodon.social Paul Taylor on mastodon
@Techmeme There's nothing fishy about that, at all.
@globalaffairs @globalaffairs on x
In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today.
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@mattyglesias Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?
@jimmy_wales Jimmy Wales on x
What Wikipedia did: we stood strong for our principles and fought to the Supreme Court of Turkey and won. This is what it means to treat freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan. https://twitter.com/...
@rmac18 Ryan Mac on x
This is a blueprint for repressive governments everywhere. If Twitter doesn't censor the content you want, simply threaten to cut off the service. Its owner just put it in writing. https://twitter.com/...
@mattyglesias Matthew Yglesias on x
The Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and @elonmusk complied — should generate some interesting Twitter Files reporting. https://twitter.com/...
@repadamschiff Adam Schiff on x
The day before a critical election in Turkey, Twitter appears to be acquiescing to the demands of the country's autocratic ruler, Erdogan, and is censoring speech on the platform. Given Twitter's total lack of transparency, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Musk's promises.…
@steinkobbe @steinkobbe on x
Elon literally arguing that political censorship is fine when he does it because he's getting pressure to do it from authoritarian governments https://twitter.com/...
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
There is only only one 🧠 falling out of one head and that's Elon's. Being a persistent quisling to authoritarian governments upon which your other businesses are dependent has a very Vichy France vibe. (Correct answer: Yes, throttled entirely to protect free speech, Mr.... https:…
@petestrzok Pete Strzok on x
“Free speech is meaningless unless you allow people you don't like to say things you don't like” - Elon Musk (Btw, when's Turkey's Presidential election? Oh, tomorrow? Imagine that.) https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@mattbinder Matt Binder on x
Twitter used to routinely challenge Turkey's takedown requests Erdogan actually had Twitter banned in Turkey in 2014 for refusing to comply. (the courts later ended the ban.) but that was on the “censorship” version of Twitter, not this new “free speech” one https://twitter.com/.…
@jebtanrip JebTan on x
Yes. Twitter has censored Twitter accounts based on German law since about 2018 to ensure Twitter remains accessible to German users. This is not new at all, Twitter has always bent to governments when the clearly laid out consequence of not doing so is a country blocking them. h…
@dougsaunders Doug Saunders on x
Seriously, this platform went from being a defender of electoral free speech in 2021 to a willig tool of authoritarian leaders seeking unopposed reelection in 2023 https://twitter.com/...
@omunderdal Olav Mitchell Underdal on x
@elonmusk @mattyglesias Seriously, Elon: did your moral compass fall out of your heart, or did you just sell it to some corrupt foreign government in exchange for car sales? https://electrek.co/...
@markscott82 Mark Scott on x
Reminder: this isn't the first time Musk & Twitter have let down global users. Here's me in December on how it was already playing out. It has just got worse since then https://www.politico.eu/...
@ericnewcomer Eric Newcomer on x
You'd think given Peter Thiel's case that China is a core political issue of our time he and his crew would be on the path for a conflict with Musk. But it seems like they're intentionally covering their eyes on that one
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Just thinking maybe when the USG didn't hold Facebook (Zuckerberg, Andreessen, Thiel) accountable for trading influence with democracies and elections, it sent a signal globally that a private social media company can be an asset well beyond its financials. Maybe. https://twitter…
@joshtpm Josh Marshall on x
Even better than this tweet is the comments. A wave of blue checks thanking Elon for keeping it real https://twitter.com/...
@joshtpm Josh Marshall on x
Another good example of blue check as the symbol of eagerness to fluff Elon Musk. This is a complicated situation for every internet company. And many have decided to block certain content in the face of govt demands. But seldom as automatically as Musk seems to. They've often...…
@mattbinder Matt Binder on x
there was once a social media platform that resisted Erdogan was temporary banned fought back against Turkey's ban and overreaching takedown requests in a court of law and won that company was Twitter https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@tomerguler Ömer Güler on x
So, @elonmusk, you really think that Erdoğan could have shut down Twitter before the elections tomorrow? Nope, it was a bluff, and you fell for it. https://twitter.com/...
@mehdirhasan Mehdi Hasan on x
Free speech absolutist seems super sensitive today https://twitter.com/...
@ericnewcomer Eric Newcomer on x
no atheists in a foxhole. no libertarians in bank run. no free speech absolutists when tesla's business interests are at risk
@ericnewcomer Eric Newcomer on x
Elon Musk's business interest in pandering to authoritarian regimes while running a core platform for global news is one of the true free speech platform risks presently, one that should be animating for the right given their China concerns.
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
Musk is amazingly bad at media, unless the penny drops and you realize — as a very smart and well know fellow techie told me when Elon bought Twitter — that this is all about global influence and backscratching for his other businesses. Spot on.
@general_oluchi @general_oluchi on x
If the Nigerian government wants the same, Elon Musk might do the same for them. Jack stood his ground when Buhari threatened to ban Twitter, and they did and eventually unbanned it but at least Jack didn't cave in to the threats. https://twitter.com/...
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
“The choice was to allow a government to censor free speech right before an election or refuse to comply and protect people's right to free expression” https://twitter.com/...
@walshfreedom Joe Walsh on x
An authoritarian asks free speech absolutist @elonmusk to censor his opponent's speech prior to an election, and free speech absolutist Elon Musk dutifully complies.👇 https://twitter.com/...
@mehdirhasan Mehdi Hasan on x
Free speech king Elon Musk strikes again! https://twitter.com/...
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
this whole Twitter free speech thing is going just as you might expect https://twitter.com/...
@ericnewcomer Eric Newcomer on x
The “free speech” crowd is absolutely silent. Mortifying that their guy's position is deference to autocrats.
@penamerica @penamerica on x
Twitter will block some content in Turkey ahead of Sunday's presidential election. The company did not explain which tweets would be blocked, nor who made the request, but president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has previously blocked Twitter across all of Turkey. https://www.forbes.com/.…
@virtaava Toni Mikkola on x
This move has been widely criticized by opposition politicians and freedom of expression groups. https://www.forbes.com/... https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://www.turkishminute.com/ ... 3/3
@mehdirhasan Mehdi Hasan on x
Old Twitter, for all its many faults, refused to comply with more than 50% of government removal requests. You comply with 100% of them - why is that? https://twitter.com/...
@theomniliberal Destiny on x
lol wait, what, I'm sorry am I misunderstanding this or is @elonmusk admitting to censoring someone's political opponents at the ///request of a government///? Has Twitter ever done anything like this in its history? https://twitter.com/...
@mattyglesias Matthew Yglesias on x
As I said it sounds like the Twitter Files reporting on this will be interesting — will be eager to see that the gang does with the info that's surely coming their way. https://twitter.com/...
@paleofuture Matt Novak on x
Elon Musk, free speech champion https://www.forbes.com/...
@rmac18 Ryan Mac on x
https://twitter.com/...
@mattyglesias Matthew Yglesias on x
As I've been saying all along, the big problem with Twitter and free speech is that Musk has a much more significant business as the main shareholder of a major international car company that needs to curry favor with various regimes. https://www.slowboring.com/...
@mtaibbi Matt Taibbi on x
Matt, are you not aware the Twitter Files themselves were censored on this platform? The Twitter Files stories weren't about @elonmusk. They were about Twitter, the FBI, DHS, ODNI, etc. Why are you throwing snark at me over stuff like this? https://twitter.com/...

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