Yet again Turkey bans access to a website, this time to story-sharing platform Wattpad

Duvar English

An Ankara court on July 12 banned access to the fictional story-sharing platform Wattpad, freedom of expression organization EngelliWeb reported on July 16.

The Freedom of Expression Association’s (İFÖD) project EngelliWeb said the Ankara 10th Criminal Judge of Peace issued the ban on July 12.

Prof. Yaman Akdeniz, a prominent academic and cyber-rights expert, commented on the ban and said the court had not cited any reason for the decision.

“We were probably the first country in the world to block access to the famous reading and writing platform Wattpad. In Turkey, the country of bans, it is not yet clear whether Wattpad was blocked to ‘protect children from harmful content’ or to ‘protect public order’,” Akdeniz said.

Banning access to websites is a common practice of the Turkish government. Turkey issued access bans to at least 137,717 websites in 2022, İFÖD revealed.

The Constitutional Court (AYM) recently ruled “violation of freedom of expression” in more than 500 applications against online access blocking and content removal decisions.

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