Having successfully negotiated the exposure of a potential "false flag" attack on Syria, corruption probes, financial system chaos, court rulings of the ban's unconstitutionality, and a "successful" election, Turkey's Erdogan has decided to lift the ban on Twitter...
Turkey's Telecoms regulator lifts the Twitter ban after court decision. Twitter not yet working but govt officials say will be open shortly.
— Joe Parkinson (@JoeWSJ) April 3, 2014 [6]
As WSJ reports [7],
Turkey's telecom regulator on Thursday signaled that it would stop blocking Twitter with government officials saying the microblogging site would soon be accessible two weeks after it was banned ahead of crucial elections.
Turkey's Telecommunications Board, or TIB, removed a court ruling from its website that had been used to justify the ban shortly after 5 p.m. local time. At 5:30 p.m., Twitter still couldn't be directly accessed, forcing users to continue seeking technical workarounds like virtual private networks. The TIB later said that the block on Twitter would be "lifted right after the necessary technical steps are taken."
The telecoms watchdog's website still displayed court rulings blocking YouTube, in a sign that the video-sharing platform could be poised to remain inaccessible.
The move comes a day after Turkey's top court ruled that the Twitter ban was "illegal, arbitrary and seriously restricting the right to obtain information."
Interesting that this move comes right after the US specifically called for it...
Late Wednesday, the U.S. State Department reiterated its call for Ankara to quickly lift the ban. "We think it needs to end, and if there has been a court decision, we think it needs to be implemented quickly, as quickly as possible," Marie Harf, deputy spokesperson at the U.S. State Department, said, according to an official transcript of a press briefing on Wednesday. "Obviously we don't think YouTube should be banned either," she said.