Action will be taken after numerous journalists, news outlets and politicians complained that they had fallen victim to “cyber-attacks” in recent days, Turkish Cypriot telecommunications department chairman Tayfun Aydinli promised on Tuesday.

Multiple news outlets and journalists have had their social media accounts locked and posts taken down since the weekend, but Aydinli told the north’s public broadcaster BRT that the cause of the problem was “not technically cyber-attacks”.

He said the posts and pages had been taken down “within the social media platforms’ operational processes”, with it appearing that individuals and organisations have employed bots to mass report content as copyright infringement, triggering social media platforms to automatically hide content and lock accounts as a precaution.

Aydinli also said that it is “not possible” for the Turkish Cypriot authorities to directly “intervene” with the running of international social media platforms, but said that the Turkish Cypriot telecommunications department has been “making contacts in Turkey regarding this matter”.

Outlets impacted included the social media accounts of newspaper Yeniduzen and news websites Kibris Postasi, Haber Kibris, Kibris Genc TV, Bugun Kibris, and My Kibris Haber, while political chat show host Mustafa Alkan, social media journalist Serdinc Maypa also had social media posts deleted.

Meanwhile, high-profile politicians, including former Turkish Cypriot chief negotiator for the Cyprus problem Kudret Ozersay, opposition political party CTP member Devrim Barcin, and Yasemin Ozturk, of ruling coalition party the UBP, also had social media posts removed.

Yeniduzen reported that the content had been taken down following initiatives taken through Aiplex Software Private Ltd, a technology company based in the Indian city of Bangalore which, according to the newspaper, charges US$50,000 per month to monitor and report content.

The newspaper also reported that content using keywords such as “Juju” – the nickname for ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel’s longtime close personal associate Fatma Unal – as well as “cyber-attack”, and words related to the ongoing strikes and protests in the north have been targeted.

On Monday, the Cyprus Turkish journalists’ association condemned the removal of journalistic content from social media. Within hours, this post, too, was deleted after being mass reported.

Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman promised that the matter “certainly will be addressed”, and said that in spite of the “attacks”, “no one should doubt that the Turkish Cypriot people will uphold their democratic culture”.

This week is not the first time that underhand social media tactics have been employed in the north, with a wealth of bots having written comments critical of Erhurman and supportive of Ersin Tatar during last year’s Turkish Cypriot leadership campaign.

Erhurman had at the time said that “some ‘dear friends’ from around the world” had taken an interest in the election campaign, using Facebook’s “angry” emoticon to react to livestreams of one of his televised campaign stops.

Among those to declare their fury at Erhurman’s performance were Khaing Yamin Wai, who lives in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, Tran Thuy, who hails from the Vietnamese town of Ninh Hoa, other ostensibly Vietnamese accounts including Tran Xuan, Hung Phan, and Nguyen Phuong, and Charity P Tembo from Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.