Ekşi sözlük ban lifted following top court verdict

Following the last year's devastating earthquakes in Maraş, the social media platform Ekşi Sözlük, which had been blocked citing 'the preservation of national security and public order,' has now been unblocked.

CEO Başak Purut, in an update titled "January 22, 2024, eksisozluk.com is open for access," announced the lifting of the access restriction imposed on eksisozluk.com by the Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK).

Purut noted that BTK implemented the decision after the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of Ekşi Sözlük, stating:

"After the Constitutional Court's decision in favor of Ekşi Sözlük was notified to the court that issued the closure decision, the decision was lifted and conveyed to the BTK. The restriction also appears to have been lifted on the BTK's website.

Although it has not yet been implemented by some ISPs, the majority now allows access from ISPs to eksisozluk.com.

Having our rights delivered by the highest court in Turkey is great, but it is saddening and exhausting that we had to resort to this due to the injustices we faced."

"Violation of freedom of expression"

On February 22, 2023, Ankara 4th Peace Criminal Judgeship imposed censorship on Ekşi Sözlük, citing the preservation of national security and public order as reasons.

Ekşi Sözlük appealed the court's decision and eventually took it to the Constitutional Court. On January 11, the Constitutional Court ruled that the access restriction violated the freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 26 of the Constitution.

In order to eliminate the consequences of the violation, it ordered a copy of the decision to be sent to Ankara 4th Peace Criminal Judgeship for retrial.

Following the access restriction decision, the dictionary started using domain names such as eksisozluk1923.com, eksisozluk1999.com, eksisozluk111.com to avoid censorship. (HA/VK)