Slashdot Mirror
Turkey Censors YouTube
FM Reader writes "After a controversial mock-up video reportedly submitted by a Greek member about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, Turkish courts ordered the national ISPs to ban the online video service, YouTube. YouTube hostnames are currently redirected at the DNS level to a page that announces the court order."
I think this is about the stupidest thing I have heard from Turkey for a long time (not that I hear much from there). Seems the courts and government doesn't agree on if Turkey should work on tying to become part of the European Union.
Things like these are going to be a problem a serious problem in any negotiations, I can hardly think of any way to demonstrate more clearly that freedom of speech is not something that is not practiced in Turkey.
Thinking about it I find it a bit ironic that the country I live in, Denmark (member of the EU) have done exactly the same thing with allofmp3 that Turkey now did to youtube, yet Denmark is probably quite well known for their so called defense of freedom of speech, latest demonstrated by some drawings of Muhammed.
I guess the reasons behind the two court ordered bannings are a bit different.
In Turkey the reasons being nationalistic and religious, while it in Denmark is the music industries (and according to them also the artists) interest and money that is the reason (one could maybe then start arguing that we just have a different kind of "state religion" in Denmark, I will keep out of that discussion).
Anyhow I kind of understand if the Turkish negotiators will think of the EU as talking with two tongues if they start telling them that Turkey can't do this kind of thing if they want to be part of the EU.
Edit your hosts file to point to 208.65.153.253 or 208.65.153.251. Here are the instructions for each OS:
/etc/hosts'
:-/
# Unix/Linux/OS X
1. 'su'
2. 'echo "208.65.153.253 www.youtube.com" >>
# Windows
1. Start > Run > 'cmd'
2. 'echo 208.65.153.253 www.youtube.com >> c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts'
You may need to edit your hosts file with a text editor to ensure that it was properly edited. On Windows in particular, there may not be a line break added in. Just open the file, find the "208.", position the cursor in front of the "208." and press enter. Save the file.
There. All done.
As you can see, the Turkish government's solution is incredibly sophiticated and difficult to circumvent.
Here's an actual story on the issue.
The long and short of it is that Turkey found the video "insulting" and hasn't even decided yet if the video is legally "wrong". So much for being a "democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic". (Taken from Wikipedia.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
... That they have to go to http://208.65.153.251/ or edit their hosts file to do it.
This is actually quite in line with what many nations in the EU would do. I mean, just yesterday we had a story posted to Slashdot about France apparently outlawing the filming of violence. Leading EU member nations like Germany, France and Austria also have rather draconian "hate speech" legislation. Censorship is a European way of life. Most Europeans like to think that they're free to speak their mind, but in reality that's not the case.
In response to inquiries from the press about censorship, Turkey responded, "Gobble Gobble!!! Gobble Gobble Gobble!!! Gobble Gobble. Infidel. Gobble Gobble"
Turkey, as a country, has what in a human would be diagnosed as pathological narcism. They just jailed a Kurd for six months for respectfully referring to convicted rebel Abdullah Ocalan as "Mr Ocalan". They brought criminal charges against their Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk for mentioning a government-sponsored genocide almost 100 years ago. Turkey denies this holocaust.
Why do I say this? Just to make clear this new ruling is just a small symptom of a much wider problem. It shouldn't surprise us in any way, but merely drive home the point Turkey is currently rather distant from European ideas of how to apply state power. More insidiously, this new conflict also points at the ever-increasing difficulty of isolating minority opinions from outside critique - the only way to do it, ultimately, is the North Korean route. I don't think Turkey will do that - they have a very proud and nationalistic government, but it is not a dictatorship with the power to force the ever-increasing price of its ego issues on all of the population.
blow your mind already
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk replaced something. Why don't you check out what he replaced. You will understand VERY clearly why he's a saint in Turkey.
I don't care what he did. Winston Churchill did great things when he lead Britain to defeat the Nazis, yet I can call him a fat drunken slob without fear of recrimination if I so desire. That's what freedom's about: not having to care about offending people just because they did something important.
Turkey is a place where 'holy state' concept still lingers on. Anything said against the state, or 'holy' values instantly justifies and extreme measures - like banning of a whole mega site from ALL users in an 60 million nation.
it doesnt matter what purpose for the site is generally used or not - just say something that is not to the liking of the state, and voila, all is gone.
Turkey is not a modern country by any means unfortunately. Everything is shown to be in that direction by the turkish negotiators to european union, however suppression of the citizens by the government still continue on.
Recently, if you remember, a list of 30+ games including Knight online, counterstrike, halflife and such were banned in turkey from internet cafes with the state decision, citing reports from obscure, unknown local academician's reports that said 'these games teach kids violence'. These reports were given on the fly, with demand from government, in a few hours without any research. Simple as that. An executive decision that took half a day for the governmental bureucracy to take and implement.
Same goes for anything else - citizens are pariah to the state in turkey. If you go to get something done in a local government branch, the appointed/elected authority holders scorn over you, elected representatives of the assembly behave like they are local feudal lords, not as normal people elected to serve people. The current Finance Minister passes out FOUR laws in order to erase HIS OWN COMPANY'S tax debts to government, and nobody can oppose it. A newspaper/television says something not to the liking of the ruling party, and suddenly finance ministry starts a thorough and not-by-the-book tax examination of that newspaper/televison to suppress them.
Recently a law was prepared and proposed in order to make it much more easy for government to control what is being said on the internet, with the help of a certain media group's fud-spamming, saying that 'internet is evil and needs to be straightened out'.
Unfortunately this is turkey for you.
Read radical news here
Gary Brecher: Glory to the Turks
Oh, and also here is the Pingus engine game, Gallipoli: The Game which has a very short bio of Ataturk on the page("Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkish): Killed a lot of Australians (and New Zealanders) at Gallipoli and therefore became the first President of Turkey."), but it also has a picture. You can play as Ataturk in the game which is a good example of Australian sardonic humor.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
As noted in other posts, you can't criticize the Turkish government unless you want to be arrested. How do you tell a government that it's done something stupid if you can't do so, even a little bit, without being arrested?
The answer is simple: You leak the information to the world and let them do it for you.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The Turkish government and bureaucracy does not understand the Internet yet. The legal system still holds user generated content sites responsible for policing the content and may legally stop them a take down order (similar to DMCA take down notices). For international websites, they may disable access till the dispute is cleared (similar to freezing bank accounts in criminal cases.) However the legal system is not yet aware of using IPs instead of URLs and such blocks as this one end up being nothing more than an annoyance. This mentality causes quite a lot of problems for Internet users in Turkey but let's not forget that this is not unique to Turkey. Before you criticize Turkey, please remember that the USA hosts a menace called RIAA whose sole purpose has become to stop P2P (they'd have better luck trying freeze hell.) And this latest block is not even remotely the stupidest legal act in Turkey; 1-2 years ago the government tried to revise IT related laws and declared that every web site must present its content to the local authorities, on paper, in triplicate! It took a few months to make the government understand that this was not possible. Disclaimer: I'm a Turkish citizen but not Turkish...
Can someone tell me what this "Sig" box is for??
Censorship is serious, but there's no need to resort to childish name-calling!
The ironic thing is that Ataturk himself wasn't big on censorship. He was something of a liberal dictator, and was responsible for turning Turkey into a secular, liberal democracy. Turkey is the only Islamic country in the Middle East that works.
and what he did.
Actually Mustafa Kemal is a jacobin, someone who is extremely in line with French Revolution ideals. (Same ideals were in fact envisioned before french revolution in france with the likes of voltaire, rousseau and the contemporaries, and put forth as bill of rights in American Revolution and united states's founding ideals).
By that time, Turkey was Ottoman Empire. The 'holy state' understanding was in much heights after the ending of reign of Sultan Abdulhamid, who was an absolute monarchist, and ruled with an iron fist. Actually, that iron fist regime has ended with the intervention of modernists in the military, the Jonturks, who was roughly french revolution idealists, jacobenites, who Mustafa Kemal was a member of. They have led an army from modern day greece to istanbul, and effected the removal of Abdulhamid.
Pre world war I and in world war i, mustafa kemal shown much aptidude and prowess as a commander. In gallipoli, most known examples of his profess in matters military. This, have put him in much renowned position among the military commanders.
It was known that he was a republican (not in u.s. sense, but in a sense that is much more in line with Danton), and he and similar people wouldnt accept subsequent invasion and occupation and partition of turkey with the proposed Sevrés treaty that effectively turned Anatolia into modern day yugoslavia (you got my meaning), and therefore he was appointed to a non-existent, fud army by the Sultan (then Mehmed) to an obscure region of turkey so that he wouldnt stir anything up.
Instead, he resigned from the military, and Jacobenites (Jonturks, as they are known in turkish lingo) have gathered up in eastern anatolia, called for national assembly to be formed without approval from istanbul government, and created a national assembly with elected representatives there.
From that point on, the government in ankara, which was a rebel ragtag's convention in istanbul government's and occupation forces' eyes, was de facto government of anatolia.
Then this government proceeded to gather the spread-out resistance movements to the occupation (english, french, italian and then later greek) occupations of anatolia, and turned them into a regular army.
what ensues is known as 'battle of independence' in turkish history, which roughly summarizes a major war against occupying greek forces, who were being used as a thug by the british government in power than, and some local fighting against the french in southern regions of the turkey. curiously italians and turkish did not fight at all, italian occupation of allotted territories have been uneventful, neither side complaining from each other, and passing time peacefully until ankara government's victory against greek forces and establishment of turkish republic and subsequent removal of italian forces from turkish territories, which italy did themselves by their decision, again, uneventfully.
fight against the greek invasion, who was fueled by extremist nationalists in greece was bloody though, and many people died in both sides. fight ended when the final greek units were pushed out of izmir, in western turkey.
occupation forces in istanbul, who were british, did not create a skirmish with turkish forces, a standoff ensued, which ended with english forces pulling out as a result of Lausanne treaty, in which international community recognized the now Turkish Republic.
Immediately after, Mustafa Kemal embarked in many reforms. This is the main issue why Mustafa Kemal is idolized.
First, he ended the khaliphate, effectively ending mohammad's successors combined rule of matters religional and governmental. Secular state was introduced, based on rationale. This annoyed the hell out of islamic segments of turkey.
Second, he instituted educational reforms. There were 1 or 2 % people who were capable of reading & writing in turkey. After 20 years, this rate has gone to, what, 70% or so, if
Read radical news here
I don't care what he did. Winston Churchill did great things when he lead Britain to defeat the Nazis, yet I can call him a fat drunken slob without fear of recrimination if I so desire.
You can also call him an alcoholic, but he might tell you you're ugly, and that he'll be sober in the morning.
If the disinformation and off-topicality are what bothered you, then why didn't you simply 1) Point out the errors, like the number of Armenians generally accepted as killed 2) Point out the non relatedness of the genocide to the topic at hand? The link you used, as the poster below me pointed out, is anything but unbiased, and even in your response you questioned the genocide's proper legal classification, as if to say we shouldn't be calling it a genocide, when just about every country other than Turkey calls it that. Whether or not you realize it, but in your attempt to counter the padded body count, you just defended the stance that attempts to downplay or deny the Armenian genocide.
damaged by dogma
Here's a western-oriented Muslim country with a democratic secular government it imposed on itself.
Actually, it was imposed by the Turkish army. And every time the government has gotten out of line, the army has put it back.