YouTube banned in Turkey

this is the page you receive should you try to access YouTube whilst in Turkey. at first I thought it was a problem with the hotel internet connection in Istanbul, but I could (almost) read / understand some of the text of the message. and I googled it and found many articles about it from 2007. and there's an updated 2008 wikipedia entry saying this is the second ban.

apparently there was an online dispute (war???) between Greece and Turkey - harsh comments were made on both sides. on the Turkish side comments were made about Ataturk their first leader following the Ottoman period, who led the country post-WWI, after leading the battle & Turkish victory at Gallipoli in which too many of ANZAC soldiers were killed. I went to Gallipoli & ANZAC cove yesterday - I wonder if more wars will be fought this way in future - with corporations 'killed' in the virtual space - or at least access to their product - rather than people.

from this Times Online article
[quote]
Greek and Turkish YouTube users have been trading video insults over the past few months, attracting much coverage in the Turkish press. Greek videos reportedly accused the founding president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, of homosexuality; a Turkish user responded by calling Greece the birthplace of homosexuality.

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.

Turkey wishes to join the EU in the next round of enlargement and has been criticised for its failure to safeguard freedom of expression. The country’s most famous author, Orhan Pamuk, faced up to three years in jail after being charged with “insulting Turkishness” after talking to a Swiss newspaper about Turkey’s human rights record. The case was dropped in January after international condemnation.
[/quote]

some of the comments from this article were interesting too - one mentioned that the Dogan owner had initiated the ban to assist his television video. very interesting! Dogan TV did launch their satellite broadcast system around that time. though I imagine this is speculation and an urban myth / rumour only - it's amazing what tv viewers talk about on the online forums. the second rumour he mentions is of a permanent ban - apparently the 2007 ban lasted 3 days, but a new ban was put in place in January 2008. it's May 25th 2008 now - I'm not sure if this is still the same ban as was started in Jan.

[quote]
Its the 23rd of march today, and the ban is still present. Rumor has it, the owner of nearly all media in Turkey, the head of Dogan Holding, initiated the band in order to relieve all other -Dogan-founded- video platforms from the competition. Yet another rumor is that the ban is permanent.

Can, Istanbul, Turkey
[/quote]

I wonder, are people better off / worse off or indifferent to not having youtube videos to watch?? the rest of the world has only had them for a few years anyway. I'll keep an eye out for the Turkish version of youtube.

one of the comments on my original photo page is from johnozgonul who said :

[quote]Chaos started from a insulting video
Instead of reporting this to youtube admins TURKEY (not any other country if it would have been an other case) decides to ban youtube access for Turkish people ... and there for nobody reported this video for few days.. But than again.. It just explains ALOT about how uneducated people give rush decisions

But than again its Turkey
Hole this KAOS would have been avoided by one simple mail.. BUT NOOO we have to ban the whole web site[/quote]

one of my videos on Olam Qatan music store in Israel gets a lot of bad comments from some Turkish people - some good comments also. but it's related to Turkey vs Israel not Greece. the video isn't related to either of these really - the only link is that the owner is a Turkish Israeli man. but he speaks about music & musicians - not politics or country boundaries or Nationality issues, so people just comment at any opportunity even if unrelated and unwelcomed.