ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Access to the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been restricted in Turkey since Saturday morning, multiple news agencies and a monitoring group have reported, but the reason for the blockage remains unclear.
Residents in Istanbul were Saturday morning unable to access any pages of Wikipedia without using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), AFP reported its correspondents as saying, referring to software that allows users to obscure their IP addresses to their internet service providers.
“A block affecting all language editions of the website detected at 8:00AM local time Saturday 29 April. The loss of availability is consistent with internet filters used to censor content in the country,” the The Turkey Blocks monitoring network wrote.
A self-described cyber-rights activist tweeted this screen capture of message that he said displays when users try to load the site:
Wikipedia'nın erişime engellenmesi & sansürlenmesi @AYMBASKANLIGI'nın Twitter & YouTube kararlarının ağır ihlali niteliğindedir. pic.twitter.com/jV4P9ZAmME
— Yaman Akdeniz (@cyberrights) April 29, 2017
Local media said it was an “administrative measure.”
Turkish authorities and Wikipedia had been “continually corresponding” prior to the ban, CNN Turk wrote.
"After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, an administrative measure has been taken for this website," Turkey's Information and Communication Technologies Authority was quoted as saying by the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News.
There was no immediate update on Wikipedia’s “Government_censorship_of_Wikipedia” page, or on the site’s social media platforms.
"After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, an administrative measure has been taken for this website," Turkey's Information and Communication Technologies Authority was quoted as saying by the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News.
There was no immediate update on Wikipedia’s “Government_censorship_of_Wikipedia” page, or on the site’s social media platforms.
It is unclear why the site has been blocked. Turkish authorities have previously blocked websites temporarily.
There are 284 language-specific editions of Wikipedia, according to the site.
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