Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to “eradicate” it from the country on Thursday—but Twitter 
isn’t going to leave its users powerless.
Twitter’s @Policy account tweeted instructions on how Turkish users can use the service via SMS text messaging in both the Turkish and English languages:
Turkish users: you can send Tweets using SMS. Avea and Vodafone text START to 2444. Turkcell text START to 2555.
— Policy (@policy)
To subscribe to a user’s tweets via SMS, users can send ON [username] to their carrier’s Twitter short code (i.e., 2444 or 2555 for most Turkish users). Check out Twitter’s on its support page.
Why is the Turkish Government adamant on banning Twitter?
Erdogan lashed out after anonymous audio recordings leaked on Twitter exposed apparent corruption among the prime minister’s inner circle, allegedly including Erdogan himself. According to Al Jazeera, the recordings show Erdogan and others interfering with business deals, media coverage, and court rulings
“Twitter and so on, we will root them out,” Mr Erdogan told an election rally in the western city of Bursa, adding that he would take such a step “immediately” for national security reasons. “The international community can say this or that – I don’t care. They will see the power of the Turkish Republic.
Erdogan, not much for social media, threatened earlier this month to restrict other sites like Youtube and Facebook in the run up to Turkey’s March 30 election day. In the past, Erdogan has asserted more control over the web citing privacy concerns, though Al Jazeera reports, this latest move may be more about stemming corruption rumors and allegations that have gone viral online.
