YouTube Goes Cold (In) Turkey
from the help-help-i'm-being-repressed dept
Back in January, a Brazilian judge wanted YouTube shut down after a model won a case asking for the site to be forced to take down a video of her and her boyfriend having sex in the ocean. Since that wasn't going to happen, he said Brazilian ISPs should simply block YouTube and make it inaccessible for their users. As YouTube's popularity continues to grow, these sorts of cases will become more common, and probably more ridiculous, since questions over international jurisdiction of the internet remain unresolved in many countries. Now, a Turkish court has ordered ISPs in that country to block YouTube following a spat between some Turkish and Greek users in videos on the site in which they traded insults about each other's countries. The problem is that it's illegal to criticize Turkey, "Turkishness" or the country's founder, Ataturk, so without any reasonable recourse, the court has ordered YouTube to be blocked. In the Brazilian case, the judge's order was based on a bit of misunderstanding of the internet, and he rescinded it after somebody apparently clued him in. The only misunderstanding in Turkey is thinking that banning anything on the internet really works. But the real problem here isn't the ban, the videos or YouTube -- it's with the laws regulating speech in Turkey. The country regularly charges writers and journalists with breaking the law prohibiting criticism of the country and Ataturk, most famously when it sentenced a Nobel Prize-winning author to prison for three years for comments made in an interview to a Swiss magazine, or more recently, when a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor who had been similarly charged was murdered in January. What's perhaps a little annoying here is that YouTube actually agreed to take down the videos, rather than taking a stand against the ridiculous law. Of course, it's not the first time Google's rolled over for countries that want to censor the internet.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Watch out
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Turkishness
Turkey is a pathetic little nation. Turkishness??? What on earth is Turkishness anyways? The EU doesn't want you anyways, you smell free-speech-hating overlords.
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The day that Turkey gets into the EU...
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It is already
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Does anyone really want free speech?
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Religion is a primitive form of government designed to rule by fear and rules from a higher power. It really has no place in the world today in its current form. People fighting over whos god is better... whats the point let people belive what they wish to belive.
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Re:
Yes, and let them spell how they wish to spell....
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Very well put!!! One form of evil that has always existed and will continue, unless man is freed from such ignorance is that ruling or controlling ones free will by way of fear works. It is truly not the way to a peaceful existance.
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Wolf Valley Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OFLDRJRR-A
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What is also ridiculous is that this has absolutely nothing to do with religion since Turkey is ruled by a strictly secular government. It's no more an islamic country than you are a christian country, oh, maybe less, since president of Turkey can never say that god talked him into doing some stuff.
Continue to live in your illusion of free-speech in your country while a lot of movies can not make to your theaters just because they are politically inappropriate. But it's what you are best at isn't it, you don't mind living in illusions as long as your GDP per capita is high enough...
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Well not quite so
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Profit?
Step2: Outline the article but leave out the specifics, such as how offensive the video really was, thus being a bad source of news and more of a "shocker story" rag.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit!
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Re: Profit?
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Re:
"It is illegal to criticise either Ataturk or Turkishness in Turkey and the prosecutor’s office in Istanbul acted despite YouTube’s agreement to take down the offending videos."
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Ataturk
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Re: @3
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let's give up insulting
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C*C*C* TURAN will coming.
What about the cencorship?
Turkish people watch all the stupid videos which insult Ataturk or values of Turkish people and watching the videos was forbidden. When Turkish people can't watch these kinds of videos, uploading these videos will be stopped? Of cource NO! Cencorship cannot solve any problem. Turkish people are very emotional, when they hear something which is against values of Turkishness they immediately react to it. Moreover, Turkish school children pledge alligience to Ataturk at the beginning of each school day.Thus, Ataturk is very very important for them. If is there anyone who want to know life of Ataturk and his achievements you can go (http://www.defence.gov.au/adc/docs/Publications/Geddes%20Papers%202003/04%20Mustafa%20Kemal_Byrne.p df) this site if your government does not ban it :)
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censorship
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they are cowards
Tell you what turks, this armenian is not afraid of you.
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for those who comments
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but whyyyyy?
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Please educate youself
I highly recommend you to do a little bit research before commenting like this. If you are looking for a genocide look at your libraries first.Germany-jewish genocide, Denmark-Eskimos genocide, France-Algerian genocide, England-various nations, Sweden-Lapon(Samer), USA-Indians genocide.
Rwanda genocide was in 1994 and its only responsible was belgium.How can you forget something very recent?
UNLIKE Armenian government, we opened all our history records and libraries for historians to study! Please be our guests and come to Turkey to study deeply before telling genocide tales.
Small information: Armenian-Turkey border is blocked not because of these genocide tales.It is blocked bacause they invade in Nagorno-Karabakh!
By the was Oscar goes to the guy that says Turkey is a little pathetic nation:) We were ruling most of the "Old World" while you are trying to silence Copernicus and Galilei bacause their sayings are not the ones that "The Church" wants to hear.. Does it make Europe pathetic?
No, You were underdeveloped those time.
Now Turkey and most of the countries you dislike are underdeveloped.And other countries are NOT helping us to develop.
Your government makes you feel like you are such a civilized nation but in reality you are sleeping!!!!
Wake up, educate yourself,gain a peaceful perspective towards everybody, educate everybody around you
(By the way, watch Zeitgeist guys!)
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