- Twitter announced it would "restrict access to some content in Turkey" right before the country's presidential election.
- Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales criticized Twitter CEO Elon Musk's decision to restrict content.
Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales criticized Twitter CEO Elon Musk's decision to restrict some content on the social platform leading up to Turkey's tightly-contested presidential election, which will now be determined in a runoff election.
Wales was weighing in on a Saturday exchange between Musk, a self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist," and Bloomberg columnist Matt Yglesias about Twitter's Friday announced that it would "restrict access to some content in Turkey" following "legal process." Twitter's Global Government Affairs account had tweeted about the changes ahead of Turkey's presidential election held on Sunday.
"The Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and @elonmusk complied," Bloomberg columnist Matt Yglesias tweeted Saturday.
In response, Musk tweeted: "Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?"
Wales wrote in a tweet Sunday that Wikipedia "stood strong for our principles and fought to the Supreme Court of Turkey and won. This is what it means to treat freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan."
—Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) May 13, 2023
Wales was referring in his tweet to a ban Wikipedia previously faced from Turkey's government. From 2017 to 2020, the Turkish government blocked access to Wikipedia after an entry on the website said the country was a sponsor of the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups, Insider previously reported. Turkey's highest court determined that blocking the website was unconstitutional, and access to Wikipedia was restored in January 2020, The New York Times reported.
Wales and a spokesperson for Wikipedia did not respond to Insider's request for comment ahead of publication. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The recent restrictions on Twitter have impacted accounts that criticized the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Dr. Tuğrulcan Elmas, a postdoctoral researcher focusing on social media manipulation at Indiana University Bloomington, told Insider. Elmas, who has been tracking restricted accounts, said around half a dozen users were suspended following the Twitter announcement.
During the last 20 years that Erdogan has held a government position in Turkey, he has increasingly been accused of authoritarianism.
On Monday, election officials said Turkey would hold a runoff election, after Erdogan fell short of winning the 50% majority of votes needed to secure the presidency. Erdogan won 49.5% of the vote, while his main opponent, democratic-leaning opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu, won 44.9% of the vote, AP reported. The second-round vote will be held on May 28 to determine the presidential winner between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu.
Under Musk's leadership, Twitter has agreed to more than 80% of government requests for user censorship or surveillance, per reporting from global technology publication Rest of World. Before Musk, Twitter agreed to around 50% of government requests.