Twitter and other social media outlets experienced slowdowns or other disruptions in Turkey amid an attempted military coup centered in Istanbul occurring Friday night.
@policy, the handle for Twitter’s global public policy team, announced Friday that Twitter traffic continues to flow in Turkey, but suspects there’s been an “intentional slowing.”
We have no reason to think we’ve been fully blocked in #Turkey, but we suspect there is an intentional slowing of our traffic in country.
— Policy (@policy) July 15, 2016
CNN reported that Facebook and YouTube also “experienced interruptions or outages in Turkey on Friday night” during the uprising.
Several people in Istanbul were also using Twitter’s Periscope service to live-stream activity in Istanbul, though some of those streams were no longer available further into the evening.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, meanwhile, resorted to using FaceTime on an iPhone to conduct an interview with CNN Türk, CNN’s network partner in Turkey.
With social media networks being disrupted, the U.S. State Department urged people to use other means to contact loved ones in Turkey.
Reports that social media is blocked in #Turkey. Use email/phone call/SMS to contact loved ones in area.
— Travel - State Dept (@TravelGov) July 15, 2016
