World
Turkey has put blocks on Twitter and YouTube in response to the use of the sites to share images of last week's seizure and murder of a government prosecutor, the BBC reports. The images, initially released by the militant group responsible for the hostage incident, were circulated widely by social media users and media. Turkish officials reportedly accused these media outlets of spreading "terrorist propaganda."
The move is in response to a well-publicized incident last Tuesday. The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front took Istanbul Prosecutor Mehmet Kiraz hostage, apparently in retaliation for his investigation of a Turkish police officer's role in the murder of a protester last year. Kiraz, and the two gunmen died in a raid hours after the photos were initially released. According to Reuters, an official in Istanbul said the sites were only blocked after requests to remove the images of Kiraz and the gunmen were ignored.
The Telegraph reports that this is only the latest crackdown on social media in Turkey, which previously shuttered these sites before elections in early 2014. Turkey leads the world in government requests to remove content from Twitter, a recent study shows.
