Turkish authorities have blocked all access to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Officials said "an administrative measure" had been taken.
"After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651 [governing the internet], an administrative measure has been taken for this website," said Turkey's Information and Communication Technologies Authority
Turkish media said that the authorities had asked Wikipedia to remove content by writers "supporting terror".
Previously, social media was in uproar as news of the ban emerged, with some users speculating that it might be a bid to suppress criticism on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Wikipedia page. Erdogan narrowly won a controversial referendum on April 16th.
Others speculated that the ban is because Wikipedia did not respond to Turkish's authorities demand for removing contents by certain writers whom were accused of "supporting terror" and of linking Turkey to terror groups.
Turkey has temporarily blocked social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter in the past, usually after protests or terror attacks. They previously denied censoring the internet, blaming outages were results from spikes in usage after major events.
Numerous anti-government websites are also frequent targets. Blocking websites is a common tool for the Turkish government to block to spread hateful speech, propaganda and also free speech.
