Zeynep Tufekci suggests that Turkey’s motives in blocking Twitter–where news of government corruption spread–are more strategic than most analysts believe.
The unending leaks of alleged wiretaps implicating the prime minister and his inner circle in a massive corruption scandal are certainly the target of the Twitter block, but not in the way most think. … They are playing a different game. And to actually understand what’s going on, the story needs to be analyzed where it lives: the specifics of Turkish politics, the timeline of the block, and what Erdogan (and his inner circle) is saying to his throngs of cheering supporters.
The tl;dr: it’s a kind of ostentatious public restraining order, issued to paint social media in a certain light: as a dangerous infection that does not respond to commands issued in Turkish.