In its effort to curtail access to Twitter, Turkey is getting more aggressive with a block of the service’s IP address, according to sources inside Turkey as well as a DNS provider. That means that changing their DNS server, whether it be Google DNS or OpenDNS, will no longer work for residents in the country.
Previously, Twitter users in Turkey had turned to Google DNS and other services as a way to circumvent the country’s ban of Twitter as a communication service. The government later thwarted those efforts with a block of the DNS service as well, while other services, like OpenDNS, remained available.
But the latest move by the government will make it more difficult, but not quite impossible, for residents to access Twitter. By blocking Twitter at the IP level, DNS services will no longer work. Instead, citizens are being urged to access the service via VPN or by using the Tor anonymity network.
While Turkey seeks to reduce usage on Twitter, its ban of the service has had just the opposite effect. Residents there who have found workarounds are actually tweeting more than before the government sought to block it.
Tweeting up 138% in Turkey after Twitter was banned.
Cc: @FreedomeVPN pic.twitter.com/5RGpLUhDNh— @mikko (@mikko) March 22, 2014
