Twitter down in Turkey as quake response criticism mounts

Twitter became inaccessible on major Turkish mobile providers on Wednesday as online criticism mounted of the government's response to this week's deadly earthquake.

AFP reporters were unable to access the social media network across Turkey. It still worked using VPN services that disguise a user's location.

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"Twitter has been informed by the Turkish government that access will be reenabled shortly," the platform's owner, Elon Musk, tweeted Wednesday.

The netblocks.org social media monitor had earlier showed Twitter becoming throttled and then completely blocked across all major cell phone providers.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a meeting. File photo

"The filtering measure is likely to impact community rescue efforts underway after the series of deadly earthquakes on Monday," netblocks.com warned.

"Turkey has an extensive history of social media restrictions during national emergencies and safety incidents."

Turkish police have detained 18 people since Monday's earthquake over "provocative" social media posts that criticised how President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has been dealing with the disaster.

The 7.8-magnitude tremor and its aftershocks killed more than 15,000 people in southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.

The disaster is the deadliest of Erdogan's two decades in power — a tumultuous era beset with an attempted coup and violent protests as well as a series of smaller earthquakes and floods.

Agence France-Presse