Instagram is blocked in Turkey amid a dispute over Hamas-related content on the platform. The app has been inaccessible in the country since Friday morning. Netblocks, an organization that tracks internet and social media outages, confirmed that Instagram had been restricted in the country.
Turkish regulators didn’t specify why the block was in place but, as Bloomberg reports, the crackdown on Instagram appears to be related to its handling of Hamas-related posts on the platform. On Friday, Turkey’s head of communications Fahrettin Altun, said in a post on X that Instagram “is actively preventing people from posting messages of condolences” for Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was killed earlier this week.
Meta hasn’t publicly commented on the block.
It’s not the first time Turkish authorities have blocked a major social media service. Twitter was briefly blocked in the country last year following a devastating earthquake that killed thousands of people. YouTube and Twitter were also blocked in 2014.
