Some Google services, including YouTube, were temporarily unavailable Thursday in Turkey and parts of Europe, Reuters reported, citing Turkish officials, internet monitors and user reports.
The Freedom of Expression Association, a Turkish group that tracks online censorship, said outages on Google services began around 10 a.m. local time (0700 GMT). Tracking website Downdetector reported that disruptions started easing after 0751 GMT, with most services restored before 0900 GMT.
Turkey’s deputy transport and infrastructure minister, Ömer Fatih Sayan, said on X that the country’s cyber security watchdog had requested a technical report from Google. He shared a map showing outages affecting Turkey, much of southeast Europe and areas in Ukraine, Russia and western Europe.
Users in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania also reported problems accessing websites, YouTube and phone contacts linked to Gmail. In Germany, outage tracker allestoerungen.de, a division of US-based Ookla, reported an uptick in disruptions beginning around 0700 GMT.
Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.