Turkey has blocked nationwide access to Youtube after some clips posted by Greek internet users inappropriately characterized the founder of the Turkish modern state, Mustafa Ataturk, as a homosexual.
latimes.com/business/la-fi-t … &cset=true
[quote]After receiving a court order, Turkey’s largest telecommunications provider Wednesday blocked access to the popular video-sharing website because it featured clips that were seen as insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
The censorship is evidence of YouTube’s growing social and political resonance. It also marks the latest battle between Web titans such as YouTube’s corporate parent, Google Inc., and foreign governments over free speech on the Internet as the companies expand into new markets.
An Istanbul court ordered the YouTube ban, acting on a prosecutor’s recommendation. In Turkey, it is a crime punishable by imprisonment to denigrate “Turkishness” or Ataturk, and the statute is sometimes used to prosecute those who criticize official government policy on a wide range of sensitive issues.
Within hours, visitors signing on to the site from Turkey were greeted with a message in Turkish and English saying that access to the site had been suspended in accordance with the court decision.
YouTube is only 2 years old, but its growing popularity across the globe has resulted in spats with governments. A Brazilian judge in January banned access to YouTube from that country because of a steamy video involving supermodel Daniela Cicarelli and her boyfriend, a Brazilian banker. The ban was lifted after YouTube removed the video. The state of Victoria in Australia ordered YouTube blocked from 1,600 government schools after a gang of male students used it to circulate their videotaped assault on a 17-year-old girl.
Access to YouTube, with its pop-culture zeitgeist, might not seem like an important fundamental right. But in Turkey, freedom of expression is an explosive issue — one that has shadowed the government’s push to gain membership in the European Union.[/quote]
Greek internet users who posted the video must be saying “Ha ha” to the banning of youtube nationwide in Turkey. Playing right into their hands.