The Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD) announced in its EngelliWeb monitoring work that access had been blocked to at least 867 X accounts in October 2026. Together with 1,270 accounts blocked in September, the two-month total reached 2,137. The combined follower count of the 795 accounts for which follower data was available exceeded 21.5 million. The blocks covered journalists, news organizations, political parties, academics, lawyers and economic commentators. Access was blocked on 14 October to TİP’s account with 582,000 followers and on 15 October to journalist Bahadır Özgür’s account with 163,000 followers. Halk TV’s X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Telegram accounts were also blocked on 14 October. New accounts or accounts with changed usernames belonging to T24, Halk TV, Alican Uludağ, Ayhan Dadaloğlu and Hikmet Adal were blocked again. İFÖD said its own account was blocked on 5 October, that the decision had not been served on it, and that its objections to decisions concerning the accounts of Yaman Akdeniz, EngelliWeb and Bianet were rejected. The association said it had applied to the Constitutional Court for Akdeniz and would also apply for the other two accounts. Reports concerning statements by Özgür Özel and Ahmet Şık about Justice Minister Akın Gürlek’s assets were also blocked by a decision dated 10 October. İFÖD also said regulations that entered into force on 1 November prohibited children under 15 from opening social media accounts, introduced age verification via e-Government for new accounts and required existing accounts to be verified by 31 March 2027. It said game platforms were required to appoint representatives, provide age ratings and parental controls. The number of Steam game pages blocked in Türkiye reached 767 on 28 October. The association announced that it would file a case before the Council of State seeking annulment of the age-verification regulation; it called for all account-wide access blocks to be lifted, decisions to be disclosed with their grounds and Article 8/A to be referred to the Constitutional Court.
2 November 2026
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