Turkish authorities have ordered access to the X (Twitter) account of Grok, the artificial-intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, to be blocked under Article 8/A of Internet Law No. 5651, citing the protection of national security and public order, according to a ruling publicized by the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD). Local outlets relaying İFÖD’s notice said the order was transmitted to internet service providers and that the issuing criminal judgeship of peace was not immediately identified. As of Thursday, the account had not yet been made invisible by X inside Turkey.
The move follows a July 9 order from the Ankara 7th Criminal Judgeship of Peace to block around 50 specific Grok posts on national-security grounds; some of those posts were later removed by X while others remained viewable abroad but not from Turkey.
Article 8/A permits fast-track blocking to protect life and property, national security, public order, public health, or to prevent crimes, with orders issued by a judge—or, in urgent cases, by the executive—then enforced via Turkey’s access-providers’ association.
The Grok account order lands amid a wider expansion of online restrictions. İFÖD’s newly released EngelliWeb 2024 report records 311,091 additional domains blocked last year—the highest annual total to date—bringing cumulative blocked domains/sites to 1,264,506 as of end-2024. The group also tallied, cumulatively, 270,000 URLs, 17,000 X accounts, 75,000 X posts, 25,500 YouTube videos, 16,700 Facebook posts, and 16,000 Instagram posts restricted by the end of 2024.
İFÖD characterizes the current regime as a “systematic and permanent” censorship framework in which blocking and removal orders have become routine functions of the judiciary and administration despite constitutional-court rulings, with the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) signing the majority of decisions in 2024.
