Kazakhstan’s Committee for Communication, Informatization and Information has blocked the Tumblr microblogging platform on charges of promoting terrorism and religious extremism as well as porn.
Kazakhstan Internet Association posted on its Facebook page the committee’s official response to a complaint by the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs that the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group ran its news service Dawla News on Tumblr, Central Asia's IntelliNews reports.
IS was banned in Kazakhstan by an Astana court as a terrorist organization in October 2015.
The committee also said the site had established links with over 60 porn sites.
It explained that as per Article 48 of Kazakh Civil Procedure Code, tumblr.com was found to be “illegal” by Astana’s Yesil district court in October 2015 as “products published by the foreign media outlet and disseminated in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan contain information contradicting legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan”.
As a result, the committee took measures to restrict Kazakh Internet users’ access to the microblogging platform.
The committee said it had notified Tumblr on the block and stressed that access to it would be restored, should it bring its content in line with Kazakh law. In September 2015, Kazakhstan banned the Vimeo.com video hosting website for similar reasons.
