Twitter users in Turkey bypassing the country-wide ban on the microblogging network may now have an even more difficult time accessing the service.
The Turkish government appears to have strengthened its directive blocking local residents from using Twitter as of Saturday by cutting off access to the service at the IP level, according to the Washington Post.
[seealso slug="dictators-block-twitter"]
At first, the edict seemed to be enforced only by a DNS block, which forwarded users who tried to access Twitter to another page. To circumvent the ban, many locals manually changed their DNS server, an act of rebellion that compelled many people to graffiti surfaces all over Istanbul. This defacement advertised the numbers of the servers that could still reach the site.
However, these alternative DNS options have now been blocked, according to Turkey-based English language daily Hürriyet Daily News. What's more, researchers said that any IP addresses associated with Twitter's servers can no longer be reached to begin with, The Post reported.
Renesys, an Internet intelligence company, confirmed these claims in two tweets, one of which featured a screenshot from a Turkish government webpage that proves connectivity to Twitter's servers is indeed down in Turkey.
Renesys confirms Twitter IP addresses are now blocked by several Turkish providers #TwitterisblockedinTurkey pic.twitter.com/pqVKOVcFJx
— Renesys Corporation (@renesys) March 22, 2014
Turkish govt webpage confirms Twitter IP block: http://t.co/0GvVW93mR7 #TwitterisblockedinTurkey pic.twitter.com/zXVWA3Iood
— Renesys Corporation (@renesys) March 23, 2014
Other alternative options for accessing Twitter have included tweeting via SMS, or using a VPN or TOR, and it does not appear that any of these methods have yet been affected by the most recent restrictions. Despite the ban, people in Turkey have sent 1.2 million tweets and counting as of Friday.
Turkish officials claimed in a statement that the government was forced to block the service after Twitter would not follow its court-ordered request to remove certain links. The site, in turn, tweeted that it is attempting to restore service as soon as it can, but did not mention what it will do concerning the links in question.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.