Politicians just can't help themselves. Keeping their grubby hands off the internet - that is, censoring it - is just too tempting.
Step up to the plate Turkey, which will in August impose a censorship regime in relation to the internet.
"When my wife Diane and I arrived in Istanbul on May 12—the sixth stop on our multi-country adventure—an email awaited from Diane's sister Cynthia, who is always on the lookout for a good laugh. It contained a link to a YouTube video of the late British comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, the former a cop who has pulled over the latter for playing a Beethoven piano piece too fast. Cook wore a bobby's helmet and for some reason carried a trumpet, so the sketch looked funny–but there was no sound.
We had encountered this censorship before, in China and Vietnam, and I was under no illusion that Turkey was a democratic paradise. Still, the silence was ominous, a harbinger of a greater clampdown due to take effect on August 22. On that date, the government plans to require all Turkish computer users to choose among four Internet filters–family, children, domestic or standard–if they wish to gain online access.
The authorities also have given Internet service providers and website hosts a list of 138 keywords that are off-limits. Most seem arbitrary, if not absurd: yasak, which means forbidden, is forbidden. Also yasak are etek (skirt), baldiz (sister-in-law) and hayvan (animals). Less benign words on the list are free and pic, which minimize the appearance of photographs and most references to freedom that might displease the Muslim-dominated Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power in 2003."
Step up to the plate Turkey, which will in August impose a censorship regime in relation to the internet.
"When my wife Diane and I arrived in Istanbul on May 12—the sixth stop on our multi-country adventure—an email awaited from Diane's sister Cynthia, who is always on the lookout for a good laugh. It contained a link to a YouTube video of the late British comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, the former a cop who has pulled over the latter for playing a Beethoven piano piece too fast. Cook wore a bobby's helmet and for some reason carried a trumpet, so the sketch looked funny–but there was no sound.
We had encountered this censorship before, in China and Vietnam, and I was under no illusion that Turkey was a democratic paradise. Still, the silence was ominous, a harbinger of a greater clampdown due to take effect on August 22. On that date, the government plans to require all Turkish computer users to choose among four Internet filters–family, children, domestic or standard–if they wish to gain online access.
The authorities also have given Internet service providers and website hosts a list of 138 keywords that are off-limits. Most seem arbitrary, if not absurd: yasak, which means forbidden, is forbidden. Also yasak are etek (skirt), baldiz (sister-in-law) and hayvan (animals). Less benign words on the list are free and pic, which minimize the appearance of photographs and most references to freedom that might displease the Muslim-dominated Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power in 2003."
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