Turkey's answer to most problems is Internet censorship as it blocks Tor and social media

Turkey has blocked social media websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and WhatsApp along with Tor – the popular network used to browse the Internet without being traced or tracked. According to reports by Turkey Blocks , an internet monitoring group based out of Turkey, not all users are experiencing the block and it appears to be a slowdown.

The group later confirmed that the slowdown has officially turned into an active blocking of websites. This is the result of recent assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov. According to the group, this ban on social media followed the national broadcast ban by the Turkish government.

Confirmed: Social media slowdown for many users detected in #Turkey after #Russia ambassador shooting broadcast banhttps://t.co/Fga9p84TIq pic.twitter.com/V8jyjWW6mS

— Turkey Blocks (@TurkeyBlocks) December 19, 2016

The shooting happened a day after people protested in Turkey over Russia supporting Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian President. The protests were indicative of the ongoing Syrian Civil War where thousands of people have been killed and much more being displaced from their homes.

The Syrian Army entered the rebel stronghold Aleppo last week as residents of the war-torn Aleppo started posting the last video before they become victims of the final assault, urging the world to push Bashar’s attack on Aleppo. The protesters were particularly focused on Russian involvement in Aleppo as reported by The BBC in the extended report on the assassination.

The social media ban came days after the country started banning Tor network after the ISPs started cracking down on VPN services , the virtual private networks which help people surf the Internet without being tracked. The surprising part about the Tor blocking was that unlike previous bans on the social media channels or the internet in general, this ban was not motivated by any particular trigger event. Instead, this seems more like an attempt for people to not read impartial viewpoints on the internet or use the internet without being tracked as reported by TheNextWeb .

This is the fourth widespread ban in the country this year after the attempted coup , overnight detention of 11 members of the Parliament, Ankara bombing and the email leak known as RedHack leaks from Berat Albayrak, the Energy and Natural Resources Minister. Turkey has been notorious for excessive censorship in the past as a response to anything and everything that takes place in the country.

Censorship has been used as the default response to attacks, protests, raids, car bombings and more recently the military coup . The government blocked Twitter, Facebook and YouTube during the military uprising followed by the blocking of Google Drive, Github and OneDrive to suppress the RedHack leaks.

Internet censorship should not be the way to go to suppress or bring the situation under control after any event. Instead, the process of dialogue with the public should be started as discussed by Edward Snowden in a recent interview to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey especially considering that Turkey considers itself to be a democratic nation.