X Blocks Nearly 500 Accounts in Turkey After Fund Market Crisis

The social media platform X made nearly 500 accounts from journalists, economists, academics and other public figures inaccessible in Turkey in the past week, according to EngelliWeb, which monitors internet censorship in the country.

While X didn’t specify why it had blocked the accounts, social media in Turkey has been flooded with posts on the fund crisis, including those criticizing the government’s handling. The restrictions took place following court orders that cited national security and public order, said EngelliWeb, a project of the Freedom of Expression Association.

More than 100 funds have been forced into liquidation, and dozens of owners and executives at several firms have been arrested due to the widening turmoil in the financial industry. Authorities also recently opened an investigation into social media accounts suspected of spreading false or misleading information aimed at influencing financial markets and investor decisions.

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X can withhold individual posts or entire accounts in a particular country in response to legal demands such as court orders, according to the rules published on its website. A representative for X did not respond to request for comment and a spokesperson for the Turkish government declined to comment.

Among those affected are journalists Hilmi Hacaloglu, Dincer Gokce, Ersin Eroglu and Canan Kaya, as well as news outlet Kisa Dalga. Accounts belonging to Basaran Aksu, a co-founder of labor organization Umut-Sen; political economist Inan Mutlu; university professor Baris Ovgun; and Veysel Ulusoy, founder of independent inflation research group ENAG, have also been targeted, EngelliWeb said.

Ugur Gurses, a journalist and columnist, said he received a notification from X that his account had been flagged for being subject to the court order, however his account is still accessible on the platform.

“After receiving the notification from X, I asked which of my posts had prompted the request,” Gurses told Bloomberg by phone. “They pointed to a post in which I said the State Supervisory Council should conduct an administrative investigation into the fund crisis. I don’t see how this affects national security or public order.”

“I see this as a restriction on my freedom of expression,” he said. “Rather than managing this crisis, they appear to have chosen to suppress views about it.”

In another case, Halk TV Correspondent Dincer Gokce said he simply opened another account on X after his old one was blocked.

“I believe the decision may have stemmed from some of the stories or posts I shared about the fund crisis,” he told Bloomberg. “The real issue is that X is simply complying, without any objection, with the authorities’ censorship of thousands of accounts they don’t want to be accessible.”

Yaman Akdeniz, a co-founder of the Freedom of Expression Association, said he was also among those with accounts that had been restricted. He said the notification from X didn’t identify a specific post or explain why this decision was made.

“The process lacks transparency,” said Akdeniz, who is also a professor at Istanbul Bilgi University. “In the past, blocking orders would target a specific post. Now, for unclear reasons, access to the entire account is being blocked. Anyone can become a target of this new wave of censorship.”