Turkey blocked access to Instagram on Friday, as announced by the national communications authority BTK without giving an explanation. This action follows accusations of censorship by a senior Turkish official against the US company.

The BTK stated on its website, "instagram.com has been blocked by a decision on the date of 02/08/2024," without providing further details. Many Turkish users reported being unable to refresh their Instagram feed, an issue confirmed by AFP journalists.

Fahrettin Altun, the Turkish presidency's communications director, criticized Instagram on Wednesday, accusing it of blocking condolence messages for the martyr Haniyeh. Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas and an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was killed in Tehran in an attack attributed to Israel.

Altun called the platform's actions "a very clear and obvious attempt at censure" on X. With over 50 million Instagram users in Turkey, the decision led to widespread reactions and mockery on other social media platforms.

Memes and comments highlighting the impact of the block trended on X, with users expressing frustration and humor over the situation. This is not the first instance of Turkish authorities blocking social media; Wikipedia was previously blocked from April 2017 to January 2020.

In April, Meta suspended its Threads social network in Turkey after authorities prevented it from sharing information with Instagram.