Web Censorship in Turkey: An Impasse due to a Minister who takes it personal, Kemalist complicity with the politically conservative judiciary and Indifferent user base

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I feel that Mr. Yıldırım takes the web censorship issues in a very personal level in his continuously apologetic speeches. Maybe indifference of Google administrators made him angry and he is also annoyed by netizens who criticize him of web ignorance. He keeps on using nationalistic arguments, he acts as if he is the minister of finance and he keeps telling his successes in infrastructural developments and in the mean time he builds an alliance within the information technology community (see the infotech awards below). His road-making etc is all right but I wish he wasn’t involved in information highways. Yes, during his ministry Turkey succeeded to contain all fiber highways in and out of Turkey so that all web flow can be controlled. Now private companies are not allowed to have their own. All submits the central authority. Very successful Mr. Yıldırım…

In a recent BBC news (see below) head of the Ataturk Thought Association defends their position in complaining about videos etc that insult Atatürk. Her mindset is so small that she cannot see that this in long turn weakens Atatürk’s image. She and her crew live so far away from fellow netizens…

And users are quite tech savvy. They can still access Youtube etc. and they don’t need to protest in any way. I saw tons of videos about Sonisphere are already uploaded to YouTube, which is banned for more than 2 years… But the growing censorship begins to threaten digital economies. That’s what I hear. but this does not have an impact on ordinary users yet…

These are Turkish ways sometimes I like (having such ridiculous situations is not easy to achieve) and mostly I hate…

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the Minister uses nationalist rhetoric to justify web censorship

Binalı Yıldırım may be right in wanting Google to be a taxpayer like in many other countries. But is this the way to demand? Latest censorship wave had some substantive impact on newly emerging digital economies in Turkey (digital agencies’ statement here) and the minister relies on the most primitive rhetoric to justify his unjustifiable desire to break the netizenship of Turkey. Good for you Mr. Yıldırım…

Friendfeed discussions on minister’s rhetoric here, and here. Google officials seem to have decided Turkish netizens as they are meeting with the Minister soon.

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Making fun of the ban. Here is the “National Search Engine”: Millimotor

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Turkish crusade against Google (#TurkeyCensorGoogle)

Turkey continues to embarrass herself. update: The latest ban comes through Atatürk Thought Association‘s appeal: It appealed the court because of a Google Site that insulted Atatürk. The Court decided to ban all Google Sites:) (Source) A list of 6400 banned site with court decision numbers can be found here. A circulating open letter to … Read more