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On October 14, Türkiye's justice ministry confirmed that a court had ordered the blocking of the website and social media accounts of T24, an independent news site, on the grounds that 118 pieces it published over the past year constituted "LGBT propaganda." The ministry said the move was part of an investigation codenamed "My Family Is Safe." T24 is one of Türkiye's leading independent digital news outlets, headquartered in Istanbul with an office in Ankara and a staff of about 40.
The blocking order was issued by an Istanbul court on September 29, and the site has been inaccessible inside Türkiye since September 30. Buse Sogutlu, T24's foreign news desk editor, confirmed the closure to AFP: "We got the notification an hour ago. The website is blocked in Turkey now." She said the outlet had faced a social media harassment campaign in the days before the block. The ministry's statement said T24 had "produced 118 pieces of content constituting LGBT propaganda over the past year" and that its website and social media accounts "have been shut down." T24's X account, with 1.9 million followers, was blocked as well.
Twelve Turkish journalists' associations issued a joint statement calling the decision "a grave attack on our profession" and demanding it "be reversed immediately," adding that shutting down T24 "not only seriously violates the government's obligations regarding press freedom and freedom of expression, it also directly obstructs citizens' right to receive news." Yildiz Tar, editor-in-chief of Kaos GL, whose articles were among those cited, said: "It's not propaganda. It's about basic journalism. It's about reality." Candan Yildiz, T24's editor in charge, said: "Journalism cannot be shut down. We are doing our jobs." A coalition of 21 rights organizations led by ARTICLE 19, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, warned of a "severe escalation in internet censorship in Türkiye in the past month" and urged X and Meta to refuse such blocking orders and restore blocked accounts.
According to the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD), Turkish authorities ordered at least 1,270 X accounts blocked in September alone, with a combined following of 35 million; X complied with about 90 percent of the orders by geo-blocking the accounts inside Türkiye. Those affected included independent news outlets, journalists, academics, women's rights groups, the LGBTQ+ organization Kaos GL and Amnesty International's Türkiye branch. Most blocking orders invoked Article 8/A of Türkiye's Internet Law, which rights groups say has been used to suppress free expression since its introduction in 2015. Analysts note the "My Family Is Safe" operation targeted press freedom from day one: journalists were among those arrested in the mid-September raids, and now even the news sites covering the crackdown are being silenced. The move is seen as another marker of shrinking space for independent media in Türkiye — in the same week, the government also took control of Halk TV, a leading pro-opposition news channel.
European Editorial Office
Sources: citizen.digital, Turkish Minute, dig.watch, Stockholm Center for Freedom, Gay Star News, ARTICLE 19 joint statement and public reporting