When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he wold eradicate Twitter, he wasn't joking.
The Prime Minister's office issued a statement on Thursday stating that Turkish officials had "no option" other than to ban the service, which had been used to release damaging information about him. But the edict was met with controversy and retaliation, both from Turkish citizens and Turkey's elite, including its president. The Turkish local elections are only ten days away.
See also: Dear Dictators: Yes, Please Try to Block Twitter
On a typical day, Turkey ranks No. 8 in active users worldwide, and the country's 10 million Twitter users would not be silenced. Since the country's Twitter ban seems to be enabled by a simple DNS block, people are finding ways to circumnavigate the ban, from sending tweets via SMS to changing their DNS to using a VPN or Tor.
Thursday evening into Friday, graffiti began covering the walls in Istanbul to help people access blocked Twitter.
Twitter is blocked in Turkey. On the streets of Istanbul, the action against censorship is graffiti DNS addresses. pic.twitter.com/XcsfN7lJvS
— Utku Can (@utku) March 21, 2014
#twitter blocked in #turkey tonight. folks are painting #google dns numbers onto the posters of the governing party. pic.twitter.com/9vQ7NTgotO
— Engin Onder (@enginonder) March 21, 2014
Main opposition party (CHP) in #Turkey publicizes DNS #'s to circumvent #twitter block. As seen in Istanbul pic.twitter.com/XjIvnudfgG
— Abdelrahman Ayyash (@3yyash) March 21, 2014
But the instructions for changing the DNS weren't confined to the walls.
Afiyet olsun !
#OccupyTwitter
#TweeterisblockedinTurkey
#DictatorErdogan pic.twitter.com/kAFXqwgJmI
— Çapulcu (@CaphulingsS34) March 21, 2014
The ban in Turkey coincides with the service's eighth birthday on Friday.
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