Turkey to meet Instagram officials after access ban, minister says

By Ezgi Erkoyun

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkey's government will hold talks with Instagram officials on Monday after blocking access to the social media platform last week, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said in a post on X.

The move came after a senior Turkish official accused Instagram of blocking condolence posts following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Uraloglu said Turkey had expressed certain sensitivities regarding compliance with Turkish laws in a previous meeting with representatives of Instagram last week.

“As a result of the block to Instagram in Türkiye, millions of people are being deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends, and businesses are no longer able to reach their customers in the same way," a spokesperson for Meta, which owns the social media platform, said.

"We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services.”

Turkey's Head of Communications Fahrettin Altun on Wednesday criticised Instagram for alleged "censorship, pure and simple," over what he called its decision to bar condolence posts for Haniyeh after his killing in Iran's capital Tehran on July 31.

Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of carrying out the strike that killed Haniyeh hours after he attended the inauguration of Iran's new president. Israel has not claimed responsibility.

Turkey ranks fifth in the world in terms of Instagram usage, with more than 57 million users, following India, the U.S., Brazil and Indonesia, according to data platform Statista.

Thousands of people on X protested the access ban, with Turkish hashtags that translate as "accessban, bringinstagramback, ecommercehalted" on the top trending list in Turkey since the ban.

Among those unhappy with the ban was 34-year-old Basak, who runs a handmade jewelry design account on Instagram with more than 30,000 followers, saying it had disrupted her business.

"Some of my customers contacted me by accessing Instagram through VPN and other social media platforms, but my chance of accessing new people and potential customers stopped immediately," she said.

"My sales dropped. If this (access ban) continues, it is not possible for me to get by, as I cannot reach a wider audience."

Internet monitor NetBlocks estimates the Instagram access ban cost some $11.5 million daily to the Turkish economy.

Turkish e-commerce businesses association ETID estimates that Turkish businesses generate some 900 million lira ($27 million) in revenue from Instagram daily, vice chairman Emre Ekmekci said.

If the ban continues, there will be a gradual shift in both sellers and users to other platforms, he said.

"We are hopeful the meeting will be positive and the parties will be able to find a solution. This is not just a political issue, there is also a commercial impact."

($1 = 33.3390 liras)

(Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun and Canan Sevgili;Additional reporting by Tuvan GumrukcuWriting by Burcu Karakas; Editing by Daren Butler, Mark Heinrich and Sharon Singleton)