‘Tor and VPN services now also blocked in Turkey’

After popular communication services such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were essentially blocked in Turkey on Friday, it may now be the turn of the means to circumvent those blocks. Tor and several VPN services would be unreachable in Turkey.

Service providers such as VPN Master, Hotspot Shield, Psiphon, Zenmate, TunnelBear, Zero, Vypr and Express would no longer be reachable. The news comes from Motherboard, which bases it on Turkish media coverage. Tor and VPN services have been effective in bypassing the communications media blocks that were throttled on Friday, but Turkey may be on the lookout for the tech-savvy users taking advantage of this.

Friday’s blockades follow shortly after the arrest of several leaders of the pro-Kurdish party HDP. Earlier this week, Turkey also blocked all Internet access for all Turks in the southeast of the country. For Turkey, it is nothing new to restrict or completely block internet access. This often coincides with incidents and calamities or the publication of content that the authorities consider to be defamatory.