Turkish Twitterati Boost Apps That Skirt Web Restrictions: Tech

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A bid to limit political debate in Turkey by shutting off Twitter ended yesterday. If Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan goes after the micro-blogging site again, Azima Ak says she’ll be ready.

Like millions of others in Turkey, the 25-year-old downloaded a program to her phone that hides her identity and lets her skirt the ban shortly after Erdogan on March 20 ordered the country’s Internet providers to block Twitter. Given the surge in such downloads in the past two weeks, the most important effect of Erdogan’s effort may have been a dramatic increase in the number of Turks who know how to get around government restrictions online.