Twitter partially blocked by Turkish PM

Access to Twitter was partially blocked in Turkey on Thursday, according to reports .

The reports came shortly after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to ban the social media platform after tweets sprouted up that included links to alleged telephone recordings of him, and other officials, engaging in corruption.

Erdogan was quoted as saying he would rip out the roots of Twitter.

“Twitter, mwitter! We will wipe out roots of all. They say, ‘Sir, the international community can say this, can say that.’ I don’t care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the state of the Republic of Turkey is,” the prime minister said.

As for Friday morning, #TwitterisblockedinTurkey was trending worldwide. Twitter’s public policy team sent out a message Thursday night instructing Turkish users how to continue to send messages.

Turkish users: you can send Tweets using SMS. Avea and Vodafone text START to 2444. Turkcell text START to 2555.

— Policy (@policy) March 20, 2014

Erdogan said he made the threat after Twitter failed to adhere to court orders that sought to take down some of the links to the recordings. He has denied their authenticity.

“If Twitter officials insist on not implementing court orders and rules of law … there will be no other option but to prevent access to Twitter to help satisfy our citizens’ grievances,” a statement from his office read, according to Reuters.

Many in the country continued to tweet Friday. Turkish President Abdullah Gul sent a tweet Friday that read: “A complete ban on social media platforms cannot be approved.”

In the past, the country has blocked access to YouTube. The latest blocking comes ahead of scheduled elections in the country on March 30.