unity100 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Turkish Internet Censorship Board starts operation (cnnturk.com)

Submitted by

unity100

on Friday November 23, 2007 @04:33AM

unity100 writes: "As of today, the new law on "Preventing 'catalog' crimes on internet" have taken full effect with the Censorship Board starting official duty in Turkey. Law states that access to entire websites that are found with 'objectionable' content can be prevented without court order, only with approval of the board. The catalog crimes are as follows ; 'Crimes against personality of Ataturk on internet', 'Encouraging people to suicide', 'Sexual abuse of children', 'Drug encouragement and providing', 'Providing health-hazard materials', 'Obscenity', 'Prostitution', 'Gambling'. The board members themselves are going to decide whatever falls in any category, especially 'obscenity'. A lot of sites with filesharing content was blocked as soon as the board started operation. Law shuts down even entire sites due to a single 3 word text comment found objectionable. (The news didnt make cnn website yet, its in local cnn affiliate's site)"

Submission + - Wordpress.org blocked in Turkey (webgeekworld.com) 2

Submitted by

unity100

on Friday August 31, 2007 @05:35AM

unity100 writes: "Wordpress.org domain has been blocked by monopoly infrastructure backbone provider Turkish Telekom in Turkey. Turkish internet users are not able to reach anything with wordpress.org domain extension due to DNS filtering. The move is due to a recent court order, in which a controversial religious sect leader, Adnan Oktar have sued wordpress.org for many blogs, containing criticizm about him. Since wordpress.org did not respond, Turkish courts have taken the 'Turkish' way and totally blocked wordpress.org domain instead of blocking the blogs in question one by one. Read more in below links :

http://wordpress.com/blog/2007/08/19/why-were-bloc ked-in-turkey/
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/home?wid=10&func =viewSubmission&sid=2883"

Submission + - Starcraft 2 Officially announced by Blizzard

Submitted by

unity100

on Saturday May 19, 2007 @09:09AM

unity100 writes: "Blizzard has just officially announced Starcraft 2. From the faq on their site, the game will have the 3 initial races, with some units from Starcraft gone, some new units added. They promise good deal of cinematics, and excellent balance between 3 races again. Storyline will continue where Broow War has left off. Blizzard also promises to preserve qualities that made Starcraft a lasting classic. Read more here : http://www.starcraft2.com/"

Submission + - Turkish Assembly Votes Censoring of Web sites

Submitted by

unity100

on Friday April 06, 2007 @01:02PM

unity100 writes: "Cnn has some piece of news about recent a development in turkey, where turkish assembly, totally in lieu with turkey's commitment to european union membership and european ideals, have voted to have sites that "insult" Turkish Republic founder M.Kemal Ataturk censored from entire Turkish population.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/04/06/turkey .youtube.ap/index.html"

Submission + - YouTube banned nationwide in Turkey

Submitted by

unity100

on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @08:22AM

unity100 writes: "As of 07.03.2007, access to YouTube.com has been banned nationwide in Turkey through the nations' one and only internet backbone provider, Turkish Telecom, in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court.

The reason for this court's decision is a recent video that has been published on YouTube.com recently which is said to be insulting Turkish Republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal.

Curiously, this follows on the heels of a 3-4 month long campaign by the ruling party and the media supporting them against the freedom in the internet, citing "internet needs to be 'straightened up'".

All internet users nationwide are met with the below message that apparently emanates from Turkish Telecom DNS server or access filters :

"Bu siteye eriim mahkeme kararyla engellenmitir !...

www.youtube.com sitesine eriim stanbul 1. Sulh Ceza Mahkemesi'nin 2007/384 say ve 06.03.2007 tarihli karar gerei engellenmitir.

Access to www.youtube.com site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court.""

Submission + - "Violent" Games banned In Turkey

Submitted by

unity100

on Thursday December 21, 2006 @09:10AM

unity100 writes: "Last in a series of moves in order to "protect children" against harmful content, government branches in cities around turkey have banned a list of 19 games including Counter Strike, GTA Vice City, Half Life, GTA San Andreas, Delta Force, Swat, Call Of Duty, Knightonline, The Punisher, Louncher, Hitman, Counter, Hell Forces, Halo, Line Of Sight Vietnam, Pariah, Serious Sam, Return To Castle Wolfenstein as unplayable through internet cafes around turkey. Cafes who are found to have these games are fined 12.000 Turkish Liras, which equal roughly $ 8500, as reported by the website of the foremost newspaper belonging to one of the two biggest media monopolies in turkey :

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/teknonet/5653536.asp? m=1&gid=112&srid=3439&oid=1

The ban was initiated with the directive of governors, and is enforced by police force. Governors are not elected, but appointed in Turkey, by buraeucratic arm of the government. The 'council' that decides these games are 'violent' and therefore 'harmful are comprised of a hilarious compendium of instutitions, which include national lottery instutition, State monopoly instutition, fiscal police instutition, police force (national) and some branches of health ministry and child health branches of some universities — which with a whopping percentage consist of people who are not even able to turn a computer on by themselves.

The move follows on the wake of the turmoil resulting from a high profile child porn distribution crime case, which was also much hyped by the same major newspapers."

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