Turkey has blocked access to Change.org, a global online petition platform widely used for digital signature campaigns on social, political and rights-related issues, according to an announcement by a digital rights monitoring group.
The Freedom of Expression Association’s (İFÖD) EngelliWeb project, which tracks online censorship in Turkey, said the platform had been blocked by a decision issued by the Kula Penal Court of Peace in Manisa province.
The decision was also visible on the site information query page of Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), according to Turkish media reports. BTK records showed that the access ban was based on a June 17, 2026, court decision.
No reason for the access ban was immediately reported.
Change.org allows users around the world to launch and support online petitions on issues including environmental protection, justice, human rights, animal rights and social campaigns. The platform has frequently been used in Turkey by individuals and civil society groups seeking to mobilize public opinion and collect signatures around legal, political and social causes.
Growing online censorship
The blocking of Change.org comes amid long-running concerns over online censorship and shrinking digital freedoms in Turkey, where courts and administrative authorities have frequently ordered access bans on websites, news reports, social media accounts and online platforms.
Rights groups say Turkey’s internet law, Law No. 5651, has been repeatedly expanded to increase state control over online content and impose stricter obligations on digital platforms. Critics say the framework has enabled authorities to remove or restrict access to online content, demand user data and pressure platforms through fines, advertising bans and bandwidth throttling.
The law was amended in 2020 and 2022 to impose new obligations on social network providers, including appointing local representatives, responding to court and government requests and publishing transparency reports. Rights advocates say those rules have made global technology companies more vulnerable to government pressure in Turkey, where independent journalists, opposition politicians and civil society groups already face legal and administrative pressure over their online activity.
İFÖD’s EngelliWeb monitoring project previously reported that more than 1.26 million website addresses had been blocked from Turkey by the end of 2024. The group has also pointed to long-term access blocks affecting online services such as Wattpad, Roblox and Discord since 2024.
The broader online environment has also attracted criticism from press freedom groups, which say independent journalists and rights advocates increasingly rely on digital platforms to reach audiences since much of Turkey’s mainstream media remains aligned with the government.
A Turkish journalists organization said in a recent report submitted to United Nations human rights mechanisms that independent journalists in Turkey increasingly face visibility restrictions on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok, limiting the reach of public-interest journalism.
Turkey was ranked the lowest-scoring country in Europe for online freedoms, according to a 2025 report from the Washington-based Freedom House. Turkey has a score of 31 in a 100-point index, with scores based on a scale of 0 (least free) to 100 (most free) and is listed as “not free.”
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
