Turkey Has Blocked Wikipedia and Is Censoring Twitter

Emboldened after his slim win in a referendum to broaden his powers, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's purge of voices critical of the government has continued online.

Turkey blocked access today to Wikipedia on April 29, citing a vaguely worded law that allows authorities to block a website deemed obscene or a threat to national security. Wikipedia, the open access site, was down in all languages using a Turkish IP address as of 8am, according to the monitoring group Turkey Blocks.

This comes on the back of Turkish authorities asking of Twitter to block Mahir Zeynalov, a journalist and leading critical voice against Erdogan's autocratic rule—and it is not the first time.

The journalist gained popularity on Twitter for firing off poignant tweet storms that included the names and personal details of other journalists and academic colleagues who were imprisoned days after the coup in July 2016. Nearly 50,000 people from various professions including civil servants, police officers, judges, teachers have been arrested in the ongoing purge.

Read the full story on Motherboard.