Meta Platforms welcomed Türkiye's reopening of access to its social media platform Instagram, it said on Tuesday adding that it continues to talk to Turkish authorities about content and accounts that violate its policies.
"We are pleased to see that Instagram is back up and running in Türkiye... We remain in dialogue with the authorities and will continue to take action on any violating content and accounts," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
"This includes removing content that violates our Dangerous Organizations & Individuals policy and applying newsworthy allowances where appropriate," the spokesperson said.
Türkiye restored access to Instagram on Saturday following a nine-day block after Ankara said the U.S. company agreed to cooperate with authorities to address the government's concerns.
"As a result of our negotiations with Instagram officials, we will lift the access block at 9:30 p.m. (6:30 p.m. GMT) after they promised to work together to meet our demands regarding catalog crimes and censorship imposed on users," Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said in a post on X on Saturday.
Turkish authorities blocked access to the platform on Aug. 2 for failing to comply with the country's laws and rules.
The ban came after a top Turkish official accused the platform of blocking posts expressing condolences over the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the late leader of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas. Haniyeh was killed in Tehran last month in an attack blamed on Israel.
Meta says that the company has not changed policies but agreed to review the accuracy of actions taken regarding policy-violating content and accounts in Türkiye in the days following Haniyeh's death.
It said that it applied newsworthy allowances to content posted by Turkish politicians as per its standard approach. Meta allows policy-violating content to be visible if it is newsworthy or in the public interest.
The U.S. social media giant was at the same time prompted to apologize last week for the removal of content by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, offering condolences over Haniyeh's death. The apology came a day after Anwar's office summoned Meta representatives to seek an explanation on why the leader's Facebook and Instagram posts about Haniyeh's death had been removed.
Türkiye ranks fifth in the world in terms of Instagram usage, with more than 57 million users, following India, the United States, Brazil and Indonesia, according to data platform Statista.
