ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s government on Monday called officials from Instagram to a meeting, four days after blocking the social media platform for unspecified reasons.
Instagram, which has been suspended in Turkiye since Friday, has been accused by the authorities both of censorship and of failing to remove posts the authorities deemed offensive.
The freeze has harmed business for telecoms operators and vendors who sell goods via the platform.
Private television channel NTV said representatives in Turkiye of the platform, which is owned by Facebook parent Meta, would meet Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu at 1:00 p.m. (1000 GMT).
“We will meet them this afternoon. We hope they will do what’s necessary to respond to our demands. We’re hoping for positive developments,” Uraloglu said on X.
The minister said he had blocked access to Instagram because of “content-related offenses,” without giving details.
“Last week there was a meeting with representatives of the platform, in which we set out our views on respect for Turkish laws,” he continued.
For many Turkish businesses, Monday’s meeting cannot come soon enough.
An estimated 50-60 million of Turkiye’s 85 million inhabitants subscribe to Instagram, which serves as a platform for a wide range of commercial activities.
This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have temporarily blocked access to social media sites, including Facebook, X and Wikipedia.
Erdogan’s government is regularly accused of muzzling freedom of expression.
Turkiye summons Instagram officials over platform freeze
https://arab.news/n2z62
Turkiye summons Instagram officials over platform freeze
- This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have temporarily blocked access to social media sites, including Facebook, X and Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia ‘ideal partner’ in shaping next wave of intelligent age, communication minister tells WEF
- Abdullah Al-Swaha said aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age”
DAVOS: Saudi Arabia has accelerated efforts in “energizing the intelligent age,” making the Kingdom the world’s ideal partner in shaping the next wave of the technological age, said the minister of communication and information technology.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Abdullah Al-Swaha said the aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom was expanding global partnerships for the benefit of humanity and highlighted both local and international achievements.
“We believe the more prosperous the Kingdom, the Middle East, is, the more prosperous the world is. And it is not a surprise that we fuel 50 percent of the digital economy in the kingdom or the region,” he told the audience. He added the Kingdom fueled three times the tech force of its neighbors and, as a result, 50 percent of venture capital funding.
Al-Swaha said Saudi Arabia was focused both on artificial intelligence acceleration and adoption. At home, he said, the Kingdom was doubling the use of agentic AI in the public and private sector to increase worker productivity tenfold. He also cited the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, which was conducted in Saudi Arabia.
“If we double down on talent, technology, and build trust with partners, we can achieve success,” he said. “And we are following the same blueprint for the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom aimed to be a “testbed” for innovators and investors. Rapid technological adoption and investment have boosted Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy, with non-oil activities accounting for 56 percent of GDP and surpassing $1.2 trillion in 2025, ahead of the Vision 2030 target.
In terms of adoption, Al-Swaha said the Kingdom had introduced the Arabic-language AI model, Allam, to be adopted across Adobe product series. It has also partnered with Qualcomm to bring the first hybrid AI laptop and endpoints to the world.
“These are true testimonies that the kingdom is not going local or regional; we are going global,” he said.
