Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused social media owners of "digital fascism" for allegedly censoring photos of "Palestinian martyrs and heroes."
The Turkish leader's comments came amid negotiations between the authorities and representatives of the social network Instagram to allow millions of users in Turkey to regain access to the popular service.
Previously, on Friday, August 2, the Aught company banned access to Instagram, without giving a reason.
Unnamed government sources stated that the reason was that Instagram does not comply with Turkish regulations and laws, without specifying specifically.
However, the real reason is believed to be the removal of many posts by Turkish users, who expressed condolences on the network for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
A kind of confirmation of those assumptions came from Erdogan himself: "They can't even tolerate the publication of photos of Palestinian martyrs and immediately ban them," said the Turkish leader at a gathering dedicated to human rights.
"We are facing digital fascism disguised as freethinking," Erdogan said.
He confirmed that negotiations with the owners of the company Meta, which controls Instagram, were conducted in the previous days, but that they did not bear fruit.
Instagram has more than 57 million users in Turkey, where a total of about 85 million people live.
It is estimated that social networks bring a profit of about 930 million Turkish lira ($27 million) to e-commerce in that country.
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