Turkey blocks YouTube

Another country goes the censorship route: following a court order, Turkey’s state owned and largest ISP, Turk Telecom, has blocked the access to YouTube for Turkish residents.

The reason for this is a series of quarrels by Greek and Turkish users, some of which ended in insults towards Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. Such insults are illegal in Turkey, so a court in Istanbul has ordered the whole site to be blocked.

Censorship has never solved anything, and it’s naive to think that it will do any good this time. The Greeks and the Turks can move their argument to some forum or any other website, while people who just want to see some videos of people in funny hats making things that they like, will suffer.

What’s worrying here is that countries banning YouTube is becoming trendy. Do those judges actually know how popular YouTube is? It’s pretty close to Google, folks. Don’t ban it.

3 Responses to “Turkey blocks YouTube”

  1. links for 2007-03-08 at Baron VC Says:

    […] Turkey blocks YouTube YouTube doesn’t mix well with non-Western cultures. (tags: web) […]

  2. YouTube blocked in a new country each week. This week: Thailand! - franticindustries. Says:

    […] When YouTube got banned in Turkey last week, at least it was known why. However, now YouTube is blocked in Thailand (visitors are redirected to MICT, Ministry of information and communication technology (read “censorship”)), and no one is sure of the real reason. Mashable reports that it’s probably due to a CNN interview with Thailand’s ex-Prime Minister Thaksin appearing on YouTube, which didn’t go well with Thai’s current regime. […]

  3. pipes buy Says:

    timbuk2 commute
    boil hard water

Leave a Reply