Turkey blocks over a thousand X accounts in September, targeting journalists and NGOs

In September, Turkish authorities issued court orders to block access to at least 1,270 accounts on the X platform, surpassing the total of 995 accounts blocked during the entire previous year. X complied with 1,139 of those orders, removing the accounts from view for users in Turkey. The blocked accounts included journalists, academics, economists, women’s-rights groups, LGBTQ+ organisations and individual users, with notable targets such as the Evrensel newspaper, Amnesty International Turkey, the Academics for Peace initiative and the Media and Law Studies Association.

Further restrictions were applied to accounts posting about the capital-markets and an investment-fund controversy, affecting 194 accounts with a combined following of about 12 million, and an additional 147 accounts later in the month. Most orders were issued under Article 8/A of Law No. 5651, which permits content removal for reasons like national security and public order, though the specific legal rationale was not disclosed. Critics argue the law is being used increasingly to block entire accounts rather than individual posts, a practice previously condemned by Turkey’s Constitutional Court.