The Turkish government has banned access to Reddit after reports of denied access to the social media site came from users on Friday night.
"After technical analysis and legal consideration, administration measure has been taken for this website," said an official statement from the government, dated 13 November.
The statement said Reddit was blocked under the Turkish Internet censorship law called "Internet Law No 5651". Under the law, the Turkish Supreme Council for Telecommunications and IT (TIB) can block access to websites and Internet content for many reasons, including anything connected to pornography, prostitution, drugs, terrorism, illegal file-sharing, sexual abuse of children, and "crimes against" Mustafa Ataturk — the first president of Turkey.
The TIB doesn't need authorisation from court to ban sites on the above-mentioned grounds, and does it even if there is only a "suspicion" of such activities happening.
The government broadened its Internet censorship laws last year itself, causing people of Istanbul and Ankara to take to the streets in protest. The police used riot gear, rubber bullets, and tear gas to stop the protests.
Earlier, Law 5651 was used to ban popular social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Although these bans were eventually overturned, the initial bans served as a dangerous example by the government of trying to control what can and cannot be accessed on the Internet, reported The Verge.
Users have reportedly said Reddit is banned at the DNS-level computers use to transform web addresses into IP addresses, which in return are required to direct traffic to the right places. Therefore, one can try to evade the ban by using a foreign DNS service.
As of now, it is unknown how long the ban on Reddit will continue.
