“It’s now been six days since the Turkish government blocked access to Twitter. Throughout this time, we’ve been engaged in a discussion with Turkish authorities to hear their concerns, inform them about how our platform and policies work, and try and bring this situation to a resolution,” Hurriyet Daily cited Twitter’s general counsel, Vijaya Gadde, as saying on the social media platform’s official blog.
“But still, the millions of people in Turkey who turn to Twitter to make their voices heard are being kept from doing just that.”
Twitter said that Wednesday they filed petitions for lawsuits in various Turkish courts “to challenge the access ban on Twitter, joining Turkish journalists and legal experts, Turkish citizens and the international community in formally asking for the ban to be lifted.”
The micro-blogging service also suspended content related to two of three court orders given as the legal basis for the ban because they violated its own rules. But it was challenging a third order to remove an account, which accused a former minister of corruption.
During a live TV broadcast Wednesday, Erdogan said that Twitter had failed to reach a compromise with authorities by agreeing to remove “one or two” pieces of content from the micro-blogging service. According to the PM, there are “approximately 700 pieces of content” that his government has demanded be scrubbed from the service.
Meanwhile, an administrative court in the capital, Ankara, issued a stay of execution on last week’s decision by the country’s telecommunication authority (TIB).
Once the TIB is informed by the court, the ban is expected to be lifted. The authority has 30 days to implement or appeal a court ruling halting a block on access to Twitter, a source in the PM’s office told Reuters on Wednesday.