Many Instagram users living in Turkey complained on the popular social media platform, X, that they could not refresh their feed after the country blocked access to the social media network on Friday.
The national communications authority did not give any explanation but a high-ranking Turkish official accused the United States company of censorship.
The BTK communications authority said in a post on its website that "instagram.com has been blocked by a decision on the date of 02/08/2024", without adding further details.
The Turkish presidency's communications director Fahrettin Altun on Wednesday hit out at Meta-owned Instagram, accusing the platform of "impeding people from publishing messages of condolence for the martyr Haniyeh".
Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack blamed on Israel.
"This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censure," Altun said on X.
According to Turkish media, there are more than 50 million users signed up to Instagram in Turkey, out of a population of 85 million.
The decision sparked mockery on other social media networks such as X.
A meme showing a congested metro station with the tagline: "X when Turks wake up to find that Instagram is blocked", began trending on the platform.
"Instagram is blocked in Turkey, life is over", wrote a user alongside a picture of a grieving man.
This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have blocked access to social media sites.
Wikipedia was blocked between April 2017 and January 2020 over two articles that alleged a link between the presidency and extremism.
That caused shock in a country where Erdogan's government is often accused of attacking civil freedoms due to the amount of online information that became inaccessible.
In April, Facebook owner Meta suspended its Threads social network in Turkey following a decision by authorities there to prevent it from sharing information with Instagram.
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