Türkiye announced on Wednesday it had blocked access to the instant messaging and social media platform Discord following a court decision amid safety concerns and the suspicion of crimes involving minors.
The ban came after public outrage caused by the murder of two young women by a 19-year-old man in Istanbul earlier this month. Content on social media showed Discord users subsequently praising the killing.
Multiple reports also suggested certain groups were using the San Francisco-based platform to harass underage girls and target children through grooming, blackmail, sexual abuse and cyberbullying.
The move by the infotech regulator, the Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK), came after a ruling by a court in Ankara amid "suspicion" the platform had been used for "the sexual abuse of children and obscenity."
"We are determined to protect our young people and our children ... from harmful and criminal publications on social media and the internet," Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said on social media platform X.
"We will never allow attempts to shake the foundations of our social structure," Tunç stressed.
Discord, very popular with video game fans, is also used as an internal messaging system by many firms and has become an alternative for people who have turned away from X and Facebook.
Discord, where text, audio and video can be exchanged, has some 150 million users.
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu on Wednesday said the nature of Discord made it difficult for authorities to monitor and intervene when illegal or criminal content is shared.
"Security personnel cannot go through the content. We can only intervene when users complain to us about content shared there," Uraloğlu 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."
The block in Türkiye came a day after Russia also banned the platform for violating Russian law, after previously fining the company for failing to remove banned content.
In August, Türkiye banned access to the video games platform Roblox, citing content that was harmful to children.
Roblox’s shares plunged Tuesday after short-seller Hindenburg Research said that the company had inflated key metrics and alleged that it doesn’t have sufficient safety screens to prevent pedophiles from using the site, Bloomberg News reported.
The move against Discord came days after Türkiye blocked access to Instagram, which was restored after nine days.
Russia's telecoms watchdog announced a ban on Discord on Tuesday, saying the move was aimed at "preventing the use of messaging for terrorist and extremist purposes."
Separately, Türkiye's Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya on Tuesday said authorities had taken into custody two minors said to have been actively sharing “criminal” videos and offensive content on Telegram and Discord platforms.
Yerlikaya said their statements were to be taken by the public prosecutor under the supervision of a psychologist.
"We will not show mercy to those who try to poison our society, especially our children and youth ... with their perverted thoughts on social media," the minister said on X.
