{"id":63064,"date":"2014-03-21T13:24:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T11:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=63064"},"modified":"2025-07-02T00:48:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:48:17","slug":"turkish-twitter-users-dodging-ban-with-sms-and-vpns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/turkish-twitter-users-dodging-ban-with-sms-and-vpns\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter beyond government control thanks to SMS and VPNs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Turkish <strong>Twitter<\/strong> users have once again illustrated the futility of governmental bans on the service, by using tools like SMS and VPNs to dodge official controls. In a tweet from Twitter&#8217;s Policy account, the social network offered users a way to send updates via SMS. In fact, since the ban was introduced,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/mar\/21\/turkey-twitter-users-flout-ban-erdogan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2.5 million tweets<\/a> have been posted from Turkey.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Turkish users: you can send Tweets using SMS. Avea and Vodafone text START to 2444. Turkcell text START to 2555.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Policy (@policy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/policy\/statuses\/446775722120458241\">March 20, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> Twitter has a history of assisting users in countries where authorities have banned access to its service. It has previously made similar information available to citizens in Egypt and Tunisia.<\/p>\n<p>Another popular way around bans of this type is using VPNs. VPNs (short for Virtual Private Networks) work by rerouting a smartphone or PC user&#8217;s internet traffic through another set of servers. Using a VPN makes it very difficult for government filters to see exactly which web pages or services a user is accessing. It&#8217;s very difficult, but not impossible.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23TwitterisblockedinTurkey&amp;src=hash\">#TwitterisblockedinTurkey<\/a> Get your way around the block via HotspotShield free#VPN Android <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/1lyNCbe0Cf\">http:\/\/t.co\/1lyNCbe0Cf<\/a> iOS <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/0ppDp49e1k\">http:\/\/t.co\/0ppDp49e1k<\/a> \u2014 Hotspot Shield (@HotspotShield) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HotspotShield\/statuses\/446836312185008128\">March 21, 2014<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By far the most popular VPN service on Softonic is Hotspot Shield, currently available on <a title=\"Download Hotspot Shield for Windows\" href=\"http:\/\/hotspot-shield.en.softonic.com\/\">Windows<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/hotspot-shield-vpn.en.softonic.com\/iphone\">iPhone and iPad<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/hotspot-shield-vpn-1.en.softonic.com\/android\">Android<\/a> devices. Anchorfree, the company behind Hotspot Shield has reported that VPN use increases in areas of &#8216;civil strife&#8217;. It&#8217;s important to remember, however, that no technical solution is 100% reliable when it comes to privacy and security.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Related articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"How to use Hotspot Shield for Windows\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/how-to-use-hotspot-shield-for-windows\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How to use Hotspot Shield for Windows<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"4 Alternatives to Hotspot Shield\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/4-alternatives-to-hotspot-shield\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">4 Alternatives to Hotspot Shield<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"What is encryption?\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/what-is-encryption\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What is encryption?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Protect yourself online: 10 apps to secure online privacy\" href=\"http:\/\/features.en.softonic.com\/protect-yourself-online-10-apps-to-secure-online-privacy\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Protect yourself online: 10 apps to secure online privacy<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkish Twitter users have once again illustrated the futility of governmental bans on the service, by using tools like SMS and VPNs to dodge official controls. In a tweet from Twitter&#8217;s Policy account, the social network offered users a way to send updates via SMS. In fact, since the ban was introduced,\u00a02.5 million tweets have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/turkish-twitter-users-dodging-ban-with-sms-and-vpns\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Twitter beyond government control thanks to SMS and VPNs&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[],"tags":[2358],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-63064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-app-subdomain-redirectiontwitter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331090,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63064\/revisions\/331090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63064"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=63064"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=63064"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=63064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}