Turkey blocks access to Twitter

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Thursday to "eradicate" Twitter and shortly after his announcement, Twitter users in the country began experiencing outages on the site.

Erdogan announced his plan to shut down the social media website Thursday during a campaign rally in Bursa.

"Now there is a court order. Twitter, mwitter, we will eradicate it all," he said, mocking the name of the site. "The international community will say this and that, and it doesn't concern me one bit."

"They will see the power of the Turkish Republic. This has nothing to do with freedom-shmeedom. Freedom is not invading someone's privacy," he added.

Turkey had asked Twitter's management to remove web links from the site. Twitter ignored the request, Erdogan said..

“Twitter has to obey Turkish laws just like the way it has to obey in other counties such as the United States and England," said Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek in an address on television.

Twitter users reported the site was blocked when they tried to visit it, while others suggested work-around procedures to be able to access the site.

The Turkish government has been working to remove and prevent embarrassing leaks on social media linked to a corruption investigation involving four of Erdogan's former cabinet ministers.

[Andalou Agency] [CNN]