[1][2] Using its network of monitoring probes, the project has uncovered and documented systematic mass-censorship of communications infrastructure, primarily social media services, during national emergencies and incidents of political significance relating to human rights, freedom of expression and public policy in the region.
[4][5][6][7] The alert, cited widely by international media and Turkish national broadcaster TRT, described a scheme of "filtering [...] in addition to DNS spoofing" applied by service providers to restrict access to the popular website.
[2][15] The measurements collected by Turkey Blocks contributed to the present understanding of the night's violent course, highlighting the influence of social media, online censorship and digital controls on public behavior during national emergencies as ultimately, "Erdogan supporters flooded out onto the streets, the coup was stopped.
"[17] The letter observes that the “network throttling” of Twitter and Facebook following the October 2015 Ankara bombings amplified personal tragedy caused by mass censorship incidents at a "time when citizens relied most on independent news and social media, and directly infringes on people’s right to access information."
[19][20] As a relatively young organization with the goal of "changing the way freedom of expression is done," Turkey Blocks claims to have successfully combined investigative journalism with data science to broaden understanding of internet access issues and their underlying causes.