{"id":115110,"date":"2026-06-24T03:59:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T03:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/115110\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T03:59:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T03:59:23","slug":"turkey-blocked-232000-websites-in-2025-as-digital-censorship-expanded-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/115110\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey blocked 232,000 websites in 2025 as digital censorship expanded: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Turkey intensified internet censorship\u00a0in 2025, blocking more than 232,000 websites and domain names in a single year, as the total number of blocked domains since 2018 reached 1.5 million, according to a new report<\/a> by the Freedom of Expression Association (\u0130F\u00d6D).<\/p>\n

The report, titled \u201cDigital Martial Law: Silencing the Public in the Name of Public Order,\u201d said the Interior Ministry examined 257,481 social media accounts during the year, a 30 percent increase from 2024, as authorities increasingly treated online expression as a security matter.<\/p>\n

According to the report, 2025 marked a year in which \u201creporting the truth was effectively criminalized,\u201d with access bans and bandwidth throttling no longer functioning as exceptional measures but instead becoming routine tools deployed during periods of social and political tension.<\/p>\n

Authorities continued to target major online platforms such as Instagram<\/a>, Wattpad<\/a>, Roblox<\/a> and Discord<\/a>, extending periods of restricted access in 2025.<\/p>\n

Internet throttling was used for political control, including for 42 hours following the detention of \u0130stanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu in March 2025 and for 21 hours<\/a> during the police blockade of the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party\u2019s (CHP) \u0130stanbul provincial headquarters on September 7, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u0130mamo\u011flu, widely seen as President Erdo\u011fan\u2019s strongest political rival, was arrested<\/a> in March 2025 on corruption charges that critics say are politically motivated and intended to sideline him ahead of the 2028 general election.<\/p>\n

Authorities also intensified efforts to prevent users from bypassing restrictions through VPNs, blocking 454 server addresses linked to 26 VPN services.<\/p>\n

According to the report Article 8\/A\u00a0of Turkey\u2019s internet law, which allows online restrictions on grounds of national security and public order, continued to be widely used to remove news reports and social media content without transparent oversight.<\/p>\n

The number of decisions issued under the provision jumped from 71 in 2024 to 179 in 2025, while the number of specifically targeted internet addresses rose from 828 to 6,300.<\/p>\n

The report also documented what it described as a judicial crisis<\/a> stemming from local courts\u2019 failure to implement rulings of Turkey\u2019s Constitutional Court (AYM). More than half of the violations identified in a landmark AYM judgement, which called on parliament to make necessary legal changes to remedy a systematic violation were not implemented by lower courts.<\/p>\n

Courts in \u0130stanbul\u2019s \u00c7a\u011flayan judicial district recorded a 99 percent noncompliance rate with Constitutional Court rulings, the report found. Noncompliance was even higher in cases stemming from blocking requests filed by high-ranking political figures, including President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan.<\/p>\n

The report also pointed to what it described as \u201ca new era\u201d of state control over independent digital journalism, saying Turkey\u2019s broadcasting and streaming regulator, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RT\u00dcK), warned seven major YouTube channels, including those of Cumhuriyet TV, Fatih Altayl\u0131<\/a> and Birg\u00fcn TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report further warned that a legal amendment scheduled to take effect in November 2026 would require<\/a> social media users to verify their identities through the government\u2019s e-Government portal (e-Devlet), which it said could effectively end online anonymity and create a \u201cmassive chilling effect\u201d on political speech.<\/p>\n

The US-based democracy watchdog Freedom House\u2019s \u201c2025 Freedom on the Net\u201d report\u00a0placed<\/a>\u00a0Turkey among the five countries with the steepest long-term declines in internet freedom. The organization cited broad censorship practices and intensified digital controls over the past 15 years, giving Turkey a\u00a0score<\/a>\u00a0of 31 out of 100, putting it in the bottom tier of the 72 countries assessed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkey intensified internet censorship\u00a0in 2025, blocking more than 232,000 websites and domain names in a single year, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[83],"tags":[57517,57518,13566,57519,22121,57520,56410,21938,11968,312,13872,18947,49519,9710,429,57521,131,132,155,27992,56413,57522],"class_list":["post-115110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-stockholm","tag-access-bans","tag-bandwidth-throttling","tag-birgun-tv","tag-cumhuriyet-tv","tag-digital-censorship","tag-digital-journalism","tag-discord","tag-fatih-altayli","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-human-rights","tag-instagram","tag-interior-ministry","tag-internet-censorship","tag-internet-freedom","tag-oppression","tag-roblox","tag-stockholm","tag-sweden","tag-turkey","tag-turkeys-constitutional-court-aym","tag-wattpad","tag-youtube-censorship"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116803086886733435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}