# Turkiye pulls the plug on LGBTQ voices on X

> More than a dozen Turkish LGBTQ groups vanished from X inside the country, and it is not the first sweep.
- Title: Turkiye pulls the plug on LGBTQ voices on X · Malay Mail
- Summary: More than a dozen Turkish LGBTQ groups vanished from X inside the country, and it is not the first sweep. Blocking accounts at the platform level lets a…
- Keywords: turkiye, lgbtq rights, censorship, social media, erdogan, news, world, pulls, plug, LGBTQ, voices, Malay Mail
- Source: Malay Mail — https://malaymail.com/news/world/2026/09/13/x-marks-the-spot-turkiye-mounts-fresh-crackdown-on-lgbtq-accounts-after-erdogans-perverts-jab/234992
- Published: 2026-09-13T08:58:27+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: turkiye, lgbtq rights, censorship, social media, erdogan, news, world
## A dozen accounts go dark
Accounts belonging to more than a dozen Turkish LGBTQ organisations were blocked on X at the request of Turkish authorities, the Ifod media watchdog said on Saturday.
## Who got silenced
The blocked list includes Kaos GL, one of Turkiye's oldest LGBTQ rights groups, and the lawyer Levent Piskin.
## Invisible without a VPN
AFP checked on Saturday and found the accounts, followed by tens of thousands of people, unreachable inside Turkiye unless you route around the block with a VPN.
## The president set the tone
Officials framed the move as defending traditional family values. Erdogan has called the LGBTQ community a "deviant movement" of "perverts".

> a "deviant movement" of "perverts"
## June was the rehearsal
Three months earlier, Turkiye blocked around 40 X accounts tied to feminist or LGBTQ groups. Saturday's sweep extends the same playbook.
## X has folded before
Last year the platform agreed to block over 700 accounts critical of the government, during protests over the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
## Key takeaway

Blocking accounts at the platform level lets a government erase a movement from public view without ever going to court over it.