Earlier this week, Russia blocked Discord for violating Russian law according to a report by the TASS news agency as seen on Reuters. Turkey has now joined Russia in blocking the instant messaging platform for a similar reason.
“We are aware of reports of Discord being unreachable in Russia and Turkey. Our team is investigating these reports at this time,” Discord wrote in a status update.
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Russia continues to crack down on foreign technology platforms with requests for them to take down content they consider illegal. The country issues small regular fines to companies that are guilty of not complying with their guidelines.
Last week Discord received an order from Russian regulator Roskomnadzor to delete nearly 1,000 items it considered illegal. The regulator has previously fined the San Francisco-based company for failing to remove banned content.
Soon after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia blocked access to X, Facebook, and Instagram which many believe is an attempt to control the war narrative.
Unlike Russia, Turkey’s Information Technologies and Communication Authority published the reason for restricting access to instant messaging platform on its website. The country’s Justice minister Yilmaz Tunc said an Ankara court blocked Discord due to evidence that crimes of “child sexual abuse and obscenity” were being committed using the platform.
The Turkish restriction is coming on the heels of a public outrage over the murder of two women by a 19-year-old man in Istanbul. It was reported that some Discord users praised the killing. Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said the nature of Discord made it hard for authorities to run surveillance on it and remove harmful content.
“Security personnel cannot go through the content. We can only intervene when users complain to us about content shared there,” he told reporters in parliament. “Since Discord refuses to share its own information, including IP addresses and content, with our security units, we were forced to block access.”
