Turkish authorities ordered access blocked to at least 1,270 accounts on the X social media platform in September, surpassing the 995 accounts targeted during all of 2025, DW Turkish reported, citing data from the Freedom of Expression Association’s (İFÖD) EngelliWeb project.
X subsequently made 1,139 of those accounts unavailable to users in Turkey. An access-blocking order does not automatically remove an account from view because X must separately implement the restriction on its platform.
EngelliWeb itself became the target of a blocking order on October 1. İFÖD said authorities had ordered access blocked to the project’s X account, although X had not yet made the account unavailable in Turkey when the decision was announced. İFÖD said the court that issued the order and its legal basis had not yet been disclosed.
The September orders affected journalists, academics, economists, women’s rights groups, LGBTQ+ organizations, civil society groups and individual users. Among those targeted were the Evrensel newspaper, Amnesty International Turkey, the Academics for Peace initiative and the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), a press freedom organization.
Beginning September 12, authorities also targeted numerous LGBTQ+ organizations and activists, including Kaos GL, an Ankara-based LGBTQ+ rights group, and the Social Policy, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association (SPoD). The following day, another 32 accounts, including those run by university LGBTQ+ and gender groups, were ordered blocked.
Restrictions later extended to accounts posting about Turkey’s capital markets and an investment-fund controversy. EngelliWeb documented 194 accounts that were ordered blocked amid investigations into allegations that posts about financial instruments were speculative and could cause fear or panic among investors.
Those accounts had a combined following of about 12 million and included economist Uğur Gürses and academics Veysel Ulusoy and Bilge Yılmaz. EngelliWeb later reported that another 147 accounts posting about the investment-fund controversy were ordered blocked on September 30.
Many of the September orders were issued under Article 8/A of Law No. 5651, Turkey’s law regulating online publication. The provision allows content removal or access restrictions on grounds including protection of life and property, national security and public order, prevention of crime and protection of public health. National security and public order were cited in many of the recent cases.
Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor and co-founder of İFÖD, told DW Turkish that Article 8/A was intended as an exceptional procedure for urgent cases but was increasingly being used more broadly. He also said authorities had shifted toward blocking entire accounts and websites rather than individual posts or articles.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court has previously criticized the application of Article 8/A. In a 2023 case involving the Artı Gerçek news website, the court found violations of freedom of expression and freedom of the press and said the provision, in its existing form, lacked basic safeguards capable of preventing arbitrary action by public authorities. The court also identified what it called an established pattern of improper application of the measure.
One of the most prominent restrictions in late September involved the T24 independent news outlet. An Istanbul court on September 29 ordered access blocked to both T24’s website and its X account after an earlier request had been rejected and prosecutors appealed.
Akdeniz said blocking entire accounts was disproportionate and questioned how accounts belonging to journalists, academics and rights groups could be linked to national security or public order without authorities identifying specific content that posed such a threat. His assessment was not a finding by a court.
X’s stated policy allows it to withhold content or accounts in a particular country in response to what it considers a valid and appropriately scoped legal request while leaving them accessible elsewhere. DW reported, citing EngelliWeb data, that X implemented the September orders against 1,139 of the at least 1,270 accounts, while Akdeniz said there was no clear pattern explaining why the company complied with some orders and not others. X did not respond to questions from DW about its handling of the Turkish requests.
