The extraordinary decision by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to ban twitter inside Turkey will not only cost him tens of thousands of followers but is also expected to take its toll on him at the upcoming elections. "We will eradicate twitter," said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during an elections campaign rally in the city of Bursa. "We have court orders. We do not care how the international community would respond [if we ban twitter]. We will show them the strength of the Turkish Republic." Later that evening, access to twitter was blocked through several Internet providers in the country. Erdogan's comments drew much criticism from Turkey and abroad, which prompted the premier's office to issue a statement confirming the Prime Minister's comments and adding that a ban could be placed after twitter ignored several court orders to block certain content, and failed to collaborate with the government. The ban was reported minutes after the statement. However, twitter users, who amount for almost 39 percent of Internet users in Turkey, were quick to adapt to the new unconfirmed ban. Using backdoors to circumvent the crackdown on free speech, a twitter hashtag called "TurkeyBlockedTwitter" made it to top trending topics worldwide with more than 2.5 million tweets; 77 percent of total tweets coming from Turkey. Earlier in February, a government-proposed Internet bill, deemed as censorship by opposition parties and several observers and rights groups, was approved by parliament and then later signed in by the Turkish President, who admitted to having some issues with it. Many see the new ban on twitter as one of the many bans-to-come under the controversial bill. Erdogan's move came as corruption allegations swirl. The government is still reeling from a recent corruption scandal that implicated several ministers and their families, including the prime minister himself, along with other foreign and local high-profile businessmen. Scandalous recordings of alleged Erdogan's corruption and interference in media and judiciary have been uploaded to social media websites on daily-basis since Dec 17, the date of the first arrests of former ministers and businessmen. Therefore, many argue that the recent crackdown on twitter, as well as several other vows from Erdogan to shut down video sharing website YouTube and Facebook, are the government's way to curb the flow of the corruption-linked recordings. According to Erdogan, the current corruption investigation of and the leaked recordings are the work of a "parallel state" led by Fathullah Gulen, the US-based Turkish Islamic cleric, and his followers inside the Turkish state insinuations to unseat Erdogan in the upcoming elections. Described as one of the fastest reactions, the US State Department issued a statement within an hour of the reported twitter ban in Turkey, expressing "deep concern" and stressing on freedom of speech and rule of law. Officials from the European Union, which Turkey wishes to join, were also quick to react to the move. "The twitter ban in Turkey is groundless, pointless, cowardly. Freedom to speak is fundamental," Neelie Kross, Vice President of the EU commission, wrote in a tweet. "Erdogan is not only damaging himself but his entire nation by his latest threats against twitter," said Foreign Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt. The United Kingdom embassy in Ankara also urged the government to "reconsider" the ban. The call from the embassy came via twitter as well. As outrage over the reported ban grew, government officials downplayed the measure, deeming it necessary as "lesser of two evils" while stating it would not be permanent. "It was our last choice. One has to choose between two evils," Ali Babacan, Deputy Prime Minister, told reporters on Friday, March 21. The President Abdullah Gul broke weeks of silence on twitter and denounced the ban on his verified account, evading his government's enforced ban. "No one can approve of complete shutting down of social media platforms," Gul tweeted. "I hope this will not last for long." Several other government officials, including Prime Minister's deputy, Bulunt Arinc, tweeted their day schedules on the morning of the ban, attracting more irony from the Turkish twitter users. The main Turkish opposition party, Republican People's Party CHP, filed a compliant to court against the ban. Turkey's Bar Association followed suit. However, the head of Istanbul Prosecutors' office, which cited court orders to implement ban, told the Turkish daily Radikal that the ban was not through their prosecutors and that the ban was in fact an "administrative order". Almost half of the population of Turkey has access to the Internet. Many expect the blowback from the twitter ban to have an insignificant effect on the results of the elections by the end of this month. But it's noteworthy that most of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) supporters are arguably the least social media users as they firmly believe in the ‘conspiracy theory' against their icon. But the sure thing is that Erdogan's loathing and animosity towards twitter and its brothers and sisters are not new. They date back to last summer, when protests broke out in Istanbul over a park that swelled into a rebellion against what his critics describe as his ‘totalitarian' tendencies.
