Jacob Chamberlain\u00a0<\/strong> Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s reported attempts to\u00a0ban access to the website Twitter<\/a>\u00a0in the country Thursday backfired when social media users found ways around the ban and used the site to criticize the move on a mass scale.<\/p>\n Erdogan, who is currently on the campaign trail ahead of March 30th local elections and a presidential race in August, has throughout the year faced ongoing allegations of political corruption and a brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters.<\/p>\n Twitter users have not been kind to Erdogan.<\/p>\n “Twitter, mwitter!” he said at a rally Thursday, before the site was blocked\u2013what many are calling a “digital coup.” The phrase roughly translates as “Twitter, schmitter!”<\/p>\n “We will wipe out all of these,” Erdogan said. “The international community can say this, can say that. I don’t care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is.”<\/p>\n Government officials, however, claim the ban is not politically motivated, and merely the result of a Turkish court order “that demanded the online service take down links that had allegedly insulted Turkish citizens,” the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, as it turns out, it is increasingly hard to keep citizens from their social media tools. Using an alternate DNS service, “the number of which is being posted everywhere,”\u00a0reportsBusiness Insider<\/em><\/a>, users found a way to keep tweeting, using the hashtags #TwitterisblockedinTurkey and #TurkeyBlockedTwitter, which quickly grew into trending Twitter topics worldwide as international critisicm of Erdogan picked up pace and breadth.<\/p>\n
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