Turkey's president: PM's Twitter ban 'unacceptable'

Twitter must appoint a legal representative in Turkey and block a number of individual accounts if the ongoing ban on the social media site is to end, the country's industry minister Fikri Isik has said.

Despite the block imposed yesterday, protesters have found ways to rail against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan via the service.

Mr Erdogan vowed to "wipe out" Twitter in Turkey after alleged evidence of government corruption began to spread online.

Read: Turkish President hits back at PM over Twitter ban

Germany has joined a host of voices criticising Turkey's ban on Twitter.

"It doesn't fit with our idea of freedom of expression to forbid or block any form of communication," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokeswoman said.

Turkey's courts blocked access to Twitter following Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's vow, on the campaign trail ahead of March 30 local elections, to "wipe out" the service.

He says he does not care what the international community says about it, though President Abdullah Gul has objected to his actions.

More than 500,000 tweets have been sent using the hashtag #twitterisblockedinTurkey since the service was banned in the country last night, according to social media search engine Topsy.

Analysis also shows 100,000 have used the hashtag #turkeyblockedTwitter at the time of writing.

Read: Turkish President hits out over Twitter ban

European Commission vice-president Neelie Kroes has joined the criticism of Turkey's Twitter ban.

Turkey's president has hit back on Twitter against his prime minister's ban on the service.

In a series of tweets, Abdullah Gul said that complete closure of social media sites was "unacceptable".

He added that only individual web pages should be shut down, rather than the service as a whole, should a court rule that privacy has been breached.

"Hopefully this application will not last long," President Gul said.

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister expects a block on Twitter to be temporary and says an agreement should be reached with the social media platform.

"I don't think this will last too long. A mutual solution needs to be found," Ali Babacan told CNBC-e, adding that while freedom of expression was important, the individual right to privacy also needed to be respected.

Read: Turkey block 'could threaten EU membership'

Turkey's main opposition party is to file a legal challenge against the country's Twitter ban, a senior party official has told the Reuters news agency.

The EU's Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule has appeared to warn Turkey that a ban on Twitter could threaten the country's attempts to join the union.

Turkey restarted long-running negotiations to join the EU in November, after a three-and-a-half year suspension in negotiations.

Read: Turkey blocks access to Twitter over 'privacy concerns'

Twitter users in Turkey have been sharing information across the web to help others affected by the country's Twitter ban.

Some posted the numbers for DNS or VPN connections - private protocols that could be used to hide an internet user's location and thus circumvent the blocks.

In an act of defiance, many were even posting pictures of the numbers emblazened on official government posters.

Last night, Twitter also offered its help after reports of the ban emerged - reminding users they can still tweet by SMS.

Turkey has no current plans to block access to other social media platforms such as Facebook, after its clampdown on Twitter, a senior official told Reuters.

Turkish PM vows to "eradicate Twitter" in latest clampdown