Turkish Government Wants Controls on Twitter To Limit Protesters' Communications

How dare people bypass official channels

Turkey said on Wednesday it had asked Twitter to set up a representative office inside the country, which could give it a tighter rein over the microblogging site it has accused of helping stir weeks of anti-government protests.

While mainstream Turkish media largely ignored the protests during the early days of the unrest, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook emerged as the main outlets for Turks opposed to the government.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has described sites like Twitter as a "scourge"—although senior members of his party are regular users—saying they were used to spread lies about the government with the aim of terrorizing society.