Day 1 at the World Blogging Forum

This is a post to be built all day…

WBF in Twitter.

Erkan decides to be think more about microblogging. This conference turns out to have main focus on microblogging.

Ramon Stoppelenburg narrates his story. He says any innovative move in internet will win… Boy, it is such a story. Who is this crazy dutch guy? Check out the links below:

Ramon

The Dutch Ramon Stoppelenburg (1976) started blogging from his student loft somewhere in 1998. But he became world famous for being the first ever person to travel the world for free, totally relying on the hospitality of strangers from all over the world, who invited him over through his website www.letmestayforaday.com. Over 3,577 people from 72 countries invited him over and from 2001 to 2003 he travelled through 18 countries in total, varying from Norway to South Africa and from Australia to Canada. In return for the offered hospitality he received, he wrote extensive daily reports about his whereabouts, his hosts, their life and the culture of the country he was visiting. His website had once processed over 1,2 million visits in one month. The British Sunday Times even called him the Internet Personality of the Year 2001.

Human chain for Ceylan, this evening in Taksim

I have an evening lecture, I will probably not be there but let me announce the event for Ceylan. Another shame for the Turkish authorities. In the mean time, not much progress in the Hrant Dink assassination trial, censorship issues and a note on infamous Diyarbakır Prison. Erkan’s Field Diary offers a roundup on the darker side.

An asymmetrical war against the military

by ADEM YAVUZ ARSLAN
We have heard this so many times in the past, but we heard it once more this past Friday at the weekly press conference held at the military?s General Staff headquarters: ?There is an asymmetrical war being waged against the military.?

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"Speech for the Council of Europe Cross-Border Internet, Consultation meeting (Strasbourg)

Speech for the Council of Europe Cross-Border Internet, Consultation meeting (Strasbourg)

This speech will be delivered in Strasbourg on Thursday, 08 October, 2009

Intervention Speech for the Cross-Border Internet: Consultation meeting organised by the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 8-9 October 2009
By Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Associate Professor in Law, Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University.

It is a great honour to be here today in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe, and to be very close to the European Court of Human Rights. For me, as an academic working in the field of human rights and new media, in particular with regards to legal and policy issues surrounding the Internet since the mid 1990s, the role of both the Council, and the European Court has been crucially important.

and more from cyberspace:

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Turkey and human rights – Some progress and many setbacks

I am still optimistic, still, really. But there are not all good news here.
In the mean time: a first case. a policeman arrested because of assault to a young citizen:

Police Officer Arrested After Attacking Student

Efkan Bolaç, lawyer of the severely beaten student Güney Tuna, stated that 8 police officers were involved in the assault on her client: “Tuna was not
PM Erdoğan’s speech at his party convention was discursively promising:

This Star daily headline underlines the fact that PM Erdoğan named political outsiders of Republican history from a wide range of political opposition.


[CROSS READER] Democratic initiative leaves its mark on AK Party congress

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) held its third ordinary party congress on Saturday at the ASKİ Sports Hall in Ankara.

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Web censorship non-stop in Turkey

Erkan would like to thank the “system” whose elements include legal structures and its executioners, current government, complaining parents and other assholic conservative citizens, parts of music industry and pro-establishments zealots, who is behind the continuous and increasing web censorship in Turkey.

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The ban itself sued, Petition campaign and web censorship in Turkish humor magazine covers.

More than 6 thousand sites are banned in Turkey...
More than 6 thousand sites are banned in Turkey...

Academic asks Turkish court to overturn Myspace and Last.fm blocking decisions

Yaman Akdeniz, an Associate Professor of law at the Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University today (29 September, 2009) made an appeal to the Beyoğlu Criminal Court of Peace to overturn the blocking decision involving both myspace.com and Last.fm from Turkey. The blocking decision was enforced by the Turkish ISPs since Friday, 18 September, 2009 by the order of the Beyoğlu Chief Public Prosecutor?s Office (order no 2009/45 dated 26.06.2009).

Petition against Internet Censorship in Turkey here.

Cover page of Penguen magazine’s latest issue satirizes the ban.
and these are from the older covers that were related to previous bans…

Live and notes from "Netdaş" [Netizen] meeting at Istanbul Bilgi U.

Netdaş is a Friendfeed group that is organized by Turkish netizens to challenge web censhorship issues in Turkey. This has been the most qualitative blogger/web  producer meeting. Still, it could be more productive. Anyways, here is a few notes:

Presentation by Özgür Uçkan can be found here.

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"Real-spam" campaign against MÜ-YAP

A Friendfeed group organizes to send empty CDs to MÜYAP [Turkish Phonographic Industry Society] who sued MySpace and LastFm and who is behind the current ban.
Picture 1

Source: friendfeed.com
Yarın sabahtan itibaren boş CD kapaklarının içine yerleştirip MÜ-YAP’ın posta adresine yağdıracağımız CD kapağı görselleri hazır! MÜ-YAP’ı “real spam”e boğalım! Mü-Yap Bağlantılı Hak Sahibi Fonogram Yapımcıları Meslek Birliği Kuloğlu Mah. …

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"Banners are from the Dinosaur Age"


Kristian Hammerstad’s gallery of haunted and monster art has me shivering with delight. Kristian Hammerstad (via Street Anatomy) in Monstrous art This reminds me website banners (!)


Assoc. Prof. Yaman Akdeniz (Law School, Istanbul Bilgi University) is interviewed at BiaNet. He talks about the ban; which articles might be used to ban in Turkish legal system and he declares his hopelessness. I realized there that a Turkish Video Sharing site Akilli.Tv is also banned.

Access to Myspace and Last.fm blocked from Turkey

As of Friday, 18 September, 2009 access to popular social networks Myspace and Last.fm are blocked from Turkey. The blocking order is issued by the Beyoğlu Chief Public Prosecutor?s Office (order not 2009/45 dated 26.06.2009). It is suspected that both sites are blocked because of ?intellectual property infringements? following a request by Mu-yap, the Turkish Phonographic Industry Society. [Blog entry by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz – I will update this story as more information is made available]

turkeybans: MUYAP banned more than 1700 websites in Turkey for copyright reasons.

turkeybans: http://engelliweb.com/ here’s a list of blocked websites in turkey. 4195 and still counting.

turkeybans: newspapers talks about this meaningless ban. all they think about is turkey’s global image but freedom of speech.

Subversive sites?

by Fréderike Geerdink

Network site myspace.com has been closed down in Turkey. It?s not totally clear yet why, but it?s said it has to do with copyright laws being infringed. On myspace, a lot of music is shared among members, and it?s of course feasible that in the process copyrights are not always respected.

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Three Facebook Groups to Protest MySpace/LastFm ban- and more

Last Update: 21 September 2009: 21:50

A twitter account gives updates on the ban and reactions: Turkey Bans.

Source: www.petitiononline.com
Unblock The Banned Websites In Turkey Petition, hosted at PetitionOnline.com

Özgür Uçkan writes extensively on web censorship in Turkey (all pieces in Turkish though)

Myspace, Lastfm, sansür, kültür ve “bir avuç insan”…

by Özgür Uçkan

“Türkiye’de internet sansürünün kısa tarihi… ve mümkün geleceği!
“Fransa, telifli içerik indirene ceza getiren HADOPI2 Yasası?nı kabul etti. Türkiye bu akımdan etkilenir mi?”

More ban’s in Turkey

by Internation Musing
Bt Arda Kutsal:

Access to MySpace and Last.fm is banned by Turkish court. We are currently not fully informed about the reason of the ban, but it may be due to music copyright violations. And again, this ban may be a consequence of a case filed by Turkish Union of Music Producers (MÜYAP) in order to protect music rights.
Turkish internet users can still reach both sites via
OpenDNS. Also, you can reach last.fm by changing language settings to English, since the ban on last.fm is over the address lastfm.com.tr and only users with Turkish language selection are redirected.

As usual there hasn’t been a powerful reaction to the most recent web censorship case. However, I see a rising anger in Facebook status messages and emerging groups. The Groups all in Turkish and they are not tailored to activate masses yet. As of early September 21, here are the groups and their current number of members:

Myspace'e Erişimin Engellenmesini Protesto Ediyoruz !

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Damn! Last.Fm and MySpace.com banned now!

last UPDATED- 21 September 2009- 00:17 At http://www.myspace.com/ as of 15:16 19 September 2009: Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir. T.C. Beyoğlu Cumhuriyet Başsavcılığı’nın 26.06.2009 tarih ve 2009/45 sayılı kararı gereği erişime kapanmıştır. Facebook groups, I found so far,  to protest the ban: Myspace ve Lastfm’i geri ver !! Sansüre Hayır !! 19 Eylül 2009. … Read more