Turkish government makes fresh threats to ban Twitter

Turkey-based Twitter users could soon be staring at blank screens again after the government threatened to block the social media service for the second time in less than a year, Digitialtrends.com reported.

The threat came late last week after a Turkish court banned media coverage of a police raid on Turkish Intelligence Agency trucks, citing national security concerns. Prior to the ban, Turkish news outlet BirGun had tweeted images of documents that allegedly showed the convoy had been carrying weapons destined for extremists fighting against the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The government claims the convoy was in fact delivering aid to Syria’s Turkmen minority.

After learning that BirGun had continued to tweet related content following the court order, government officials demanded Twitter take down the account of the news outlet or face being blocked in the country, the New York Times reported.