Hide My Ass! offers free VPN services to help Turkish citizens beat censorship

Here at Hide My Ass! we were appalled to hear about the latest news from Turkey and the ban on Twitter.  We’re taking drastic steps to support HMA! users in Turkey at this time – by offering free VPN during this ban – read on for details.

On Thursday night Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan banned Twitter, one of the most popular sources of online news and communication. After recently labeling social networks as “the worst menace to society”, he fulfilled his intention to close down Twitter.

To justify this action Erdogan’s office said that Twitter did not obey a Turkish court order to remove certain links on their web site.  “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,” the statement said.  Earlier in February he accused a so called “robot lobby” of targeting the government through Twitter messages. This came after recordings of Erdogan telling his son to dispose of large sums of money leaked into the public. Although the authenticity of the audio recordings was not verified, the incident prompted many Turkish citizens to discuss matter of corruption in his government. The proximity of the incident, occurring just before elections on March 30 has irritated Erdogan enough to shut down Twitter, as well as threaten similar actions against Facebook and Youtube.

We are proud of the role we played in the Arab Spring of 2011, when we had record traffic from Egypt.  More recently, we have been supporting the #KholoBC campaign against the censorship of Youtube in Pakistan. Free speech and communication are fundamental human rights and to show our support for Turkish citizens in their pursuit of online freedom, Hide My Ass will extend free services to our Turkish customers while this ban continues. See below for details of how to claim your free VPN time.

With our service you can bypass censorship and access any blocked website, like Twitter in this case. Once you connect to HMA! with any of your devices (mobile or desktop), you can choose one of our servers located in 65 countries and you will obtain an IP address which will hide your real location.  Your traffic will be encrypted and you will enjoy free and uncensored access to any website you wish while you are virtually residing in different country.

As with all such attempts to control the internet, this one is ultimately doomed to fail, as there will always be gaping holes in the blocks.  We urge all VPN users in Turkey to spread the word and help their less knowledgeable friends, co-workers and neighbours avoid this stupid ban.

How to claim – terms of this offer

All existing active customers who have an HMA! Pro VPN subscription purchased through SMS from a Turkish mobile phone number will automatically have their subscription extended.

Other existing active customers based in Turkey, who wish to have an extension, should contact HMA! customer support by email with the words “Twitter Ban” in the subject line.  Our customer support will verify your location by IP address and credit card billing details. If you did not pay by credit card, we may request other proof of address.

New customers (including inactive users) in Turkey should purchase a one week subscription via SMS which will be automatically extended. You can order via SMS by visiting the HMA! order page.

This offer is for a maximum of 6 months from 21 March 2014 or the end of the Turkish Twitter ban, whichever is sooner.

The terms of this offer may be amended at any time by Hide My Ass!

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