Social Media blocked as Turkey struggles with coup attempt

Turkey saw restricted access to social media this Friday, amid the unrest which strangled the nation late last night. The major social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were throttled by Turkish government just shortly after the news that Turkish military was being deployed in various areas of Istanbul and Ankara during what is being called an attempted military coup.

Turkey Blocks, a Twitter account that monitors sites’ blockades in Turkey, reported right at 11:04 PM Istanbul standard time that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were down in the Turkish territory.

Although Dyn Research, a research agency, claimed that the block lasted for about one and a half hour, Turkey Blocks indicated that the social media access went unresponsive for about 2 hours. Twitter Enterprise’s Policy handle claimed that they were observing an intentional slowing of traffic in Turkey.

Facebook declined any comment on the news story. A YouTube spokesperson, however, told Fortune, “We are aware of reports that YouTube is down in Turkey, however, systems seem to be functioning normally.”

Some people, however, were able to connect to these social media websites through VPN’s or proxy browsers.

In the times of crisis, Turkey has been putting restrictions on the internet access to prevent news stories that could hurt its image from escaping abroad.

As the coup attempt was unfolded, President Erdogan addressed his supporters through national TV using Facetime on his iPhone.