Türkiye said on Wednesday it had blocked access to the instant messaging platform Discord following a court decision amid concerns over platform safety and the suspicion of crimes involving minors.
The country's infotech regulator, the Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK), published the decision on the access ban on its website.
Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said early on Wednesday that a court in the capital, Ankara, decided to remove access from Türkiye to San Francisco-based Discord due to sufficient suspicion that the crimes of "child sexual abuse and obscenity" have been committed.
"We are determined to protect our youth and children from the harmful publications of social media and the internet that constitute crimes. We will never allow attempts to shake the foundations of our social structure," Tunç also said in a post on X.
The access ban decision comes after public outrage caused by the murder of two women perpetrated by a 19-year-old man earlier this month.
Following the incident, content on social media showed some users of Discord were praising the killing, which led to public outrage against certain communities on the platform.
Reports also suggested that certain groups on Discord target children through grooming, blackmail, sexual abuse and cyberbullying.
Separately, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Tuesday that it was determined by Ankara Police Department that the person named "Hz. Ebu Cehil," one of the administators of the group named "C31K," which is actively involved in the Telegram and Discord social networking platforms, "is a child named E.K., and he was taken into custody by our Zile District Police Department teams under the coordination of our Ankara Police Department."
"The person named 'Arda Bateman' was identified as a child named A.T. and was taken into custody by our Istanbul Police Department," he added.
He said that their statements would be taken by the public prosecutor under the supervision of a psychologist.
"We will not show mercy to those who try to poison our society, especially our children and youth, the apple of our eye, with their perverted thoughts on social media," Yerlikaya said on X.
The decision to ban access to the platform after a wide outcry and numerous posts shared on social media comes after a similar case earlier this year when Turkish authorities blocked access to Roblox, a gaming platform largely used by children, over similar abuse concerns.
Social media platforms, including Telegram and X, were under major scrutiny recently after the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France and the ban of Elon Musk's X in Brazil.
On Tuesday, Russia's communications regulator also blocked Discord for violating Russian law after previously fining the company for failing to remove banned content, the TASS news agency reported.