Turkish judge: Tweets fall under freedom of expression

Twitter is not required by the Turkish judge to delete tweets accusing Prime Minister Erdogan of corruption. The social networking site had filed the case after it had been forced to remove some posts about a corruption scandal.

The outcome of the case was announced by Twitter announced through his blog. According to the Turkish judge, the social networking site cannot be obliged to make tweets inaccessible if requested to do so by the government. Twitter invoked freedom of expression, something the judge agreed with. In the ruling, the judge stated that governments should not restrict their citizens when expressing their opinion.

Twitter had to remove a number of posts accusing Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan of corruption. Although the social networking site used its so-called Country Withheld Content tool to make the tweets invisible in Turkey, it also filed a lawsuit at the same time. The court ruling allows Twitter to make the messages in question accessible again in Turkey.

In addition to asking to make certain tweets inaccessible, the Turkish government also banned access to the Twitter website. A Turkish judge previously ruled that this blockade was unjustified, which means that it has now been lifted. Meanwhile, Turkey has blocked YouTube.