Turkish users fight against govt ban on Twitter

After the Turkish government implemented a ban on Twitter, users were reportedly still able to tweet after being aided by the microblogging site and Google.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan ordered that the site be taken down for the country's 76 million citizens after it refused to remove some links, which were posted as evidence against him in relation to corruption.

According to Cnet, post the shutdown after court orders, Twitter quickly informed Turkish users that they could still tweet using SMS and Google is providing help through the use of its free DNS (Domain Name System) to trespass the ban.

Graffiti displaying 'DNS 8.8.8.8' has been spotted around Turkey, helping spread the word to citizens.

Erdogan threatened to 'wipe out' Twitter in the wake of a political corruption scandal that has embarrassed the government through news, videos, and images posted on Twitter.

However, his attempts to shut down the site appear to backfire as soon after the ban, hashtags like #TwitterisblockedinTurkey and #TurkeyBlockedTwitter quickly became two of the top trending tags around the world and Turkish users had posted more than 2.4 million tweets by 3 a.m. local time on Friday.

Meanwhile, Global managing director of social media agency We Are Social, Robin Grant, said that the ban seems to be rallying more people in Turkey to take to Twitter, adding that the ban was clearly a counterproductive move.

Turkish president has also questioned the ban, and in his own series of tweets posted since Twitter was cut off, Abdullah Gul said that social media platforms cannot be completely closed and that a shutdown of social media platforms cannot be approved, the report added.