It doesn’t take much to get your Website banned in Turkey. Pretty much any complaint to a lower court can get a Website blocked in the country. Websites including YouTube, DailyMotion, Alibaba, Slide.com, and some Wordpress blogs have all been banned, usually because of some purported slight to the Turkish government or Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. (The Youtube ban was the result of a sophomoric video claiming Ataturk was gay).
The problem has gotten so bad that Turkish blogs are now banning themselves in protest. The fake bans started with Firat Yildiz, who put this message up on his blog:
Bu siteye erişim kendi kararıyla engellenmiştir
which roughly translates to:
The access to this web site is prevented by its owner’s free will.
Then another Turkish blogger, Selim Yoruk, created this page with a piece of code that lets any blogger easily add the same message to his homepage. Nearly 200 Turkish blogs have (temporarily) shut themselves down in this manner. The point is to show Turkish Web surfers what the Internet would look like if the censorship continues unabated. The protest will last until Wednesday.
(Photo by John Walker).
Checkout updated stories on this issue on the new website and magazine aggregator ceositepad.com
It’s the same with stuff that’s banned in Canada. It only matters if you care. Who cares about Turkey or Canada for that matter?
You think it’s so insane, imagine what would have happened had Tyler Cavell went through with his menace, and gotten TechCrunch blocked from Canada. There’s no way Canada can interfere with the US or California, but they could have gotten it banned on their own IP blocks through the courts.
These countries don’t have a constitution, and certainly nothing like the 1rst amendment. Quebecers think it’s ok to force people to create software and signs in French. They don’t have any notion of what freedom is. And you wonder why people like Tyler or the Turkish govt persist? The world is very different from the US, and people do not know freedom.
You are likely a troll but I will bite.
Canada is one of the most loved and respected countries in the world. Americans will tell people they are Canadian when they travel overseas because it is safer. We don’t tell other people how to live. We don’t start wars because of oil. We don’t spy on our own people. Our economy is actually good. Our beer actually has bite. We don’t shut down our schools when it snows.
We may have problems and issues with Quebec but we are trying to do something few countries have had success with this. The merging of different cultures, races and religions of people into one functioning society. This is not always easy and often common sense gets lost in the emotions of that struggle. In other counties this has lead to bloodshed and genocide, but in Canada we find ways to make it work.
We still have just as many freedoms as Americans and healthcare to boot. How do you like them apples?
Hey Chris Rondot, why don’t you just give up on the anti-Canada tirades? You tried to start a business here and you failed miserably. Now you just “blame Canada” for all your personal shortcomings (what the heck it has to do with this post I’ll never understand either).
At the very least say something factual. How on earth do you think Techcrunch would get blocked in Canada? On what grounds? Can you cite a precedent or are you just making things up again (like your Google killing search engine or your 1GB of hand crafted source code) ?
I’ll just close with a quote of yours so people reading this can get an idea of your moral character, and the limit of your intellect.
Quote from Chris Rondot from http://www.tech...comment-page-2/
“I can hire PR people to be models. As a matter of fact I am hiring one on craigslist now to do a video pitch for my new software.”
The actual Craiglist ad contents:
“Need hot woman for viral web video … I am looking for somebody that has a very bubbly personality and can look HOT in on video…You must be in a bikini and look hot”
You’re an intellectual midget, and you embarrass yourself almost every time you post a comment. The scary bit is, you don’t even realize how stupid you look. Seriously man, get a grip.
totally disagree with you. They speak French, why can’t they force signs to be in french AND english, the 2 languages spoken in the country? And seriously lumping all quebecois together as not having ‘any notion of what freedom is’ b/c they want to preserve their language and culture is hardly a logical argument
I’ll get Techcrunch banned in Turkey for its Anti-Turkishness first thing Monday morning :p
Can you get please microsoft.com banned there? It’s an evil site, you know.
Thank you for the story, Erick. I guess TechCrunch isn’t banned in Turkey yet.
P.S. Kemal Ataturk was gay for real?
Ofc he wasn’t gay. Rofl.
LOL. How can he be Gay !
Defination for Gays = (1.)Those assholes who don’t get any job and cannot marry a woman are called Gays.
(2.)Those assholes who are afraid that their money will get wasted when spend by a female partner(and therefore don’t marry them) are called Gays. lol
(3.)Those assholes who partner with other men and plan to buy a Playstation 3 together, so that both can save money are called Gays. ROFL
Is that really necessary in this subject?
What’s your really purpose to say “Ataturk was gay”?
Are you fuckin’ crazy?
Ataturk isn’t gay. He was normal sex. But your fuckin’ mind is fulled up with shit. How can you believe this shit?
Some fuckin’ Greeks bastards put video on YouTube. And you of course what they doing this. That bastards just want Turk – Greek war. Coz Turks are great on this area. And of course some idiots believe that crazy shits. Please just think a bit. Of course if you have really workin’ mind.
Well, the funny thing with Turkey is, people who ban websites do not have a clue about how they work and what they do.
These people do not have computers at home and just don’t care since this situation is too complicated for them to comprehend or to affect their lives.
A year ago they tried to pass a law that required you to send 3 hard copies of a website to an authority before making any updates to your website! ROFL. At least, that didn’t work.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is the greatest leader of all time. Some of the fundemantalist idiots said everything bad about him. Do not believe opposite of this information. And the sad thing is, Turkish government hate Ataturk too.
Guess they probably won’t be joining the EU any time soon…
this quote doesn’t get old, does it?
EU has been quite hypocrite and won’t allow Turkey any time soon anyway. Look how countries entered the EU in the past 20 years and look how much they ask from Turkey.
Don’t get me wrong tho, I am all for blaming Turkey for any kind of censorship.
Weird is that he (Ataturk) transformed a sinking Islamic land to a modern secular country, if his followers could have extrapolated his principles, Turkey would simply be a truly free land. Decades of misinterpretation lead to a mix of modern-communist-religious ideas. Democracy in Turkey is like v1.0 of a software which gets delayed and delayed and is never released.
No wonder Turkey can’t get into the EU. This is some serious censorship that restricts fundamental freedom of speech rights. I’ve been to Istanbul and really enjoyed it — it seemed like a first world, modern, and European town. But, actions like this reveal its shady side, linking it with China, Iran, and N. Korea. This article was somewhat surprising to me!
You’re quite right, as a turk who was born in Istanbul, this saddens me deeply too. What a shame… A good portion of Turkey doesn’t know what freedom of speech is and our politicians reflect just that.
Unfortunately they lie. I do not believe that these websites banned because of the insultings. There are so monkey business’ out there. If these sites were banned for Ataturk, they should ban Facebook too. Lots of groups insult this man.
Robert,
Ataturk is just an good excuse for the islamofaschist ruling Erdogan government to destroy any means of free speech and user generated content. During last elections youtube campaigns damaged Erdogan image so badly by broadcasting his footage with UN declared terrorist Gulbeddin Hekmatyar. Erdogan got his lesson well, now it’s time to take his the revenge.
Besides, Erdogan’s Big Brother Fethullah Gulen also had troubles with Youtube as his secret video tapes urging his followers to sneak into government ranks surfaces in youtube.
So the all story is all about an islamic leader and his ambitions to turn Turkey to the next Saudi Arabia.
By the way, Facebook also receives court orders and in contrary to Youtube, Facebook quickly removes the complained material. Turkey is too big market for facebook, they could even sacrifice free speech for fistfull of dollars.
it’s all about livin’ in Turkey. You cant know who is Ataturk. You cant know who is gay actually.
Realy they dont know using internet or anything about technologies.
they dont know sms messaging too. But they know that, “- we must ban which web site is against our rules. With this way, we can get succed and block them..”
also, they dont like ATATURK, i cant understand this.. they block the ATATURK AGAINST sites for being kind to ATATURK Lovers.. they do it for improve their votes..
sorry for bad english. but i wanna say something in turkish.
Bu tür engellemelerle Atatürk’e hakareti engellemek yerine, türklerin bu hakaretleri görmesini engelleyerek bunları yapanlara anti sempati duymamız engelleniyor.. Peki niye? çünkü Tayyip Erdoğan Türk insanının avrupaya gıcık gitmesini istemiyor..
Russel, you should use google for Atatürk, or simply look -> http://en.wikip...ki/Atat%C3%BCrk
In behalf of Turkish bloggers, Thanks Selim (Anafikir.Com)…
It sounded like a really bad idea at first, to shut down your blog as a protest to censorship – when the arena to speak your mind is so important in a dictatorship like Turkey. When I read it was only temporary, I got it – what a goog idea – and how brave to go through with it. Turkish actionists – you have all my support!
what dictatorship??
LOL ! Dictatorship? Do you even know where Turkey is
Can you get please microsoft.com banned there?
thanks for explaining the random smoky photo (fire?) and also adding that unnecessarily giant screenshot of the phrase, since it was so hard to picture.
Clicking on the image of the skyscrapers shows that the buildings are in Istanbul, Turkey.
I think banning your own website in protest of the policy is just lame. The real problem is, Silicon Valley-based companies are not hiring enough international people or contracting locals to monitor illegal content.
Youtube almost does a good job now, to abide American law and is self-monitoring copyrighted content to not piss the RIAA and the record labels off.
Ebay does a good job blocking pro-Nazi articles from being sold on the French and German websites. They self-monitor these to abide the laws of those countries so they can keep raking in their profits.
In the case of Turkey, you can not insult Ataturk, you can not insult Turkishness and that is the law. So if youtube wants remain in business there it will need to abide the law. Their decision to remain in business largely depends on how profitable the Turkish ad market is, and unfortunately advertising in Turkey is run by monopolies and it is really difficult even for Google to profit from the Turkish market. You can see how spam-infested the Turkish google.com.tr is, and how low the quality of the Google Adwords copy are. Most startups or rather newly started web 2.0 websites unfortunately don’t see any money making opportunities in Turkey so they don’t think it’s worth investing in the market. This will need to be changed as there are 20 million Internet users there.
So far, no Turkish-run websites have been banned, which proves my point. Also, Facebook employs 2 customer service reps who speak Turkish, that’s probably why they are not getting banned.
I think instead of speculatively broadcasting that Turkey bans websites in order to create more hits for their own websites, these self-banning bloggers should make the effort to fight against monopolies such as Dogan Holding who abuse their media power. Also, they should campaign to encourage foreign companies to pay attention to the Turkish market by investing in at least a few employees to run the ad operations and monitor the content. It’s not that bad of a market, there just needs to be more competition and more pressure from the outside.
That is unfair to everyone in Turkey. You should not banned any website.
Turkey … say goodbye to Euro. We don’t accept such country who banning blogs
but you do ban freedom of speech and put people in jail for discussing historical events.
hypocrite!
Turkish courts banning websites is a problem with missing regulations about internet & judges are not experienced with internet so they can not judge the situations well.
Ataturk is for sure one of the biggest leader in the history ever, may be the biggest. If you read the story of him, you’ll see how he managed people with no guns & money to beat England, Russians, Italians, Frenchs & Greeks in every war without losing a single land and created a republic & free people from a collapsing empire.
Welcome to the power struggle of 21st century. Idiotic government versus millions of computers.
I believe that, youtube and dailymotion sensorship is always wanted by local video services from the court. I don’t want to blame them, but izlesene.com is always reason of this fault for me.
Turkey is going back in time, into the fold of 1000+ year old religions.. There is difference between belief and fundamentalism.
At least only second level of court should have jurisdiction to block a website, since local courts have very small area under their jurisdiction. It is bad for net to live in mercy of prescribing politicians. gl for Turkey’s freedom fighters!
Total bullsh*t. Most of those sites are closed because of so called insult to Ataturk or insult to Turkishness laws, any government who tries to even mention removing those laws would be immediately labeled as “fundamentalist, religious etc. The real problem of Turkey is those who still do not understand basic human rights and tries put the blame of everything to religion.
It seems that, as usual, the argument has shifted from the main point to Ataturk/EU.
Just some info I wanted to add (I’m in Turkey right now). Although these sites are ‘blocked’, and I am indeed very opposed to this, the daily newspapers published web proxies that now everyone uses daily. It is of course very inconvenient but it shows how this isn’t even censorship, as much as the work of some rightist district attorneys with too much time on their hands. Also, the ‘blocked’ sites are mainly blocked only on Turk Telekom’s internet services (although privatized, the government has a high level of control in the company), not officially ‘censored’ for the whole country through other private ISP companies (however, note that TT essentially has a monopoly in ADSL services.)
so… horribly annoying/inconvenient/wrong, but the way things are show that the same ignorance that got these sites ‘banned’ has left plenty of ways for us to access the content. I commnend the Turkish bloggers on their willingness to take action (though no doubt this will fall on deaf ears.)
That’s what happens when instead of trying to make a difference, people start blogging.
Turkey needs to reform the constitution and civil laws. These prohibitions not only prevent people acquiring the information they want to learn but also creates a bad image of the country amid .Anyhow, Turkey is a country which desires to become an European one, meaning it aims to embrace the notions and values which embraced in Europe. Such bans put on people’s freedom is a stigma for Turkey in the 21th century.These bans and the others needs to be lifted if Turkey wants to be the role-model country for other countries in the middle east.
Since when did self-imposed silence and capitulation ever overturn government censorship policies? Doesn’t civil disobedience require the protester to continue their illicit activities despite the will of the authorities? The Turkish bloggers, in this case, are not only doing exactly what the government hopes they will do, but they’re running as fast as possible to do it.
Internet uprisings don’t exactly have the best history in terms of being effective. However, the approach that protesters take ought to, at the very least, not be counter-productive to their own goals and objectives.
http://thenerfh...og-protest.html
In Turkish there`s a saying (roughly translated): “rabbit doesn`t speak with the mountain, mountain doesn`t even know!)
However the most important part of this ban is that it attracted some media exposure.
Is it the best way to fight against these bans? Definitely not, something tangible should be done as well using the official channels. However copy/pasting 10 lines of code doesn`t require too many resources. You can do them simultaneously.
There is another protest on http://itube.appspot.com/ and http://www.sansursensin.com this is a little youtube proxy app which runs on google app engine. there is also a turkish article about “how to access youtube through google app engine” and source-code is also provided at http://www.dugu...nasil-erisilir/ ( its turkish only )
resistance is useless ?
THIS COUNTRY’S ECONOMIC RELEVANCE IS PREVENTED BY ITS OWNER’S FREE WILL.
Banning websites is not a good way to show that you follow M.K. Ataturk’s ideas. That’s just ironic.
The ban and the according law HAS NOTHING TO DO with ATATURK
The CENSORSHIP law is BROUGHT BY THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT, who actually has no good feelings towards the founder of Turkey Ataturk.
They just wanted to control all the information coming into the country.
They’re just faking. Censoring any web sites they want, using Ataturk content when it’s something important like Youtube.
This is the only way you guys here (anyone outside Turkey) and most of the Turkish people just think that Ataturk videos are the reason !!!
Political enough?
Congratulation Superrrr.
IMO I don’t think this problem relates with democracy or freedom of speech. It’s basicaly the archaic law system of Turkey that, when applied to a modern media like internet, results in absurd ways as seen. Internet hasn’t been invented in the court rooms, yet
mustafa kemal ataturk was gay and the turkish government is trying to hide this fact. best thing that ever happened for turkey is thanksgiving
http://www.yout...h?v=mxYuZDyNHj4
@sven hassel what a provocative comment! I think you are going to elemantary school..
Moderator. please erase “sven hassel”s comment. This guy is racist, ignorant ve immoral. Because of this dishonorable people, YouTube is banned to our country. This man knows nothing. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk saved our freedom, our nationality and our honor. This sob talks nonsense. Please delete this comment. Thank you.
There is a good joke for Greeks who says that Ataturk is gay ;
A Greek and an Italian were discussing about which of their country is better than the other one .
Greek says ” We have Parthenon ” .
And Italian replied ” We have Coliseum ”
Greek : “We have mathematicians ”
Italian : ” The big Rome Emperor is ours ”
Greek : ” We discovered Sex ”
and Italian : ” That’s true . But we did it with women firstly ”
lol no comment “turkey is banned”
So do i
http://www.sarkicilar.org
Turkish ideas All Banned and Sansur. Soryy I am a Turk