The government of Turkey has enhanced measures to block Twitter access after several users have come up with ways to break the ban. The internet service providers (ISPs) in the country were initially simply redirecting traffic to a government webpage by enabling the DNS servers to redirect away from Twitter’s homepage. But now the ISPs have started blocking the addresses used by the site, making it more difficult for the users to get around the restrictions, according to analysts of internet monitoring firm Renesys. This has been confirmed by a Turkish government webpage, citing court orders. The Twitter ban comes after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to “root out” the social media network. Erdogan claimed that the social networking site has been used to spread wiretapped recordings that resulted in destroying the reputation of his government. This has taken the battle between the Erdogan regime and the social media network to a whole new level. The minister’s attempt to block Twitter on March 20 2014 were put down by Turkish President Abdullah Gül, who himself flouted it. Gül posted several messages on Twitter saying “The shutdown of an entire social platform is unacceptable. Besides, as I have said many times before, it is technically impossible to close down communication technologies like Twitter entirely. I hope this measure will not last long.” Meanwhile, Twitter has declined to comment on the issue, but it is understood to be aware of the development.
