Turkey bans YouTube
Racism in low definition - Turkey has banned YouTube after some racist videos appeared between Greek and Turkish teens.
Turkish visitors to the online video-sharing site got an interesting surprise earlier this week. Rather than the usual front page, users instead saw text in bold red letters that read (translated): "Access to this site has been blocked by a court decision!" The decision comes handed down from Istanbul, where a prosecutor had recommended a temporary country-wide suspension of the site thanks to an incredibly insulting racist video.
Apparently, some "creative" Greek teens created an ethnic slur video focused around the founder of modern-day Turkey. This hate-video has since been deleted from YouTube's servers, but not before it sparked an online video war between the youth of the two countries. Several videos shot back and forth on the site before the Turkish government finally banned access earlier this week. The banning is based on several national reform laws passed last year, where insulting "Turkishness" is considered a crime.
This is not the first time YouTube has had problems with racist videos, but it's probably the oldest feud to make the digital move so far. The Turks and Greeks have fought this cultural war for centuries - it's amazing how much the song (or video) remains the same.
Have you got a thought on Turkey's ban? Do you consider it understandable under the circumstances? What about the move to online hate? Let us know your thoughts in our forums.
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17 Comments
Discuss in the forums Replyfunny isn't it, stunts like this just publicise the whole problem - Also i find it amusing that insulting "turkishness" is against the law - lol :p
I also find it a bit sad how much their reacting to it, i mean there are plenty of racist videos on youtube, but it seems like this is just being blown out of proportion
As time goes by, we are going to see more and more of this sort of thing, and not just with youtube, or in non G8 countries. It's really impossible to know how our law will cope with this kind of problem - the internet is an almost insurmountable obstacle to it.
I would like to point out that democracy is a system of politics where the rulers (and, in theory, decisions in the country, though in reality it's an elected dictatorship...) are voted in by a majority of the people in the population.
This ruling would be a case of authoritarianism, which is the opposite of liberalism, but you can have a democratic authoritarian society where there are many limits on freedom but you have the right to vote, or a democratic liberal society, or a despotic liberal society. Just, in general, they don't tend to go hand in hand.
Not trying to have a dig, I just think it's important when we start wars for democracy, that people realise what democracy is.
As for the ruling, I disagree in one sense that the government shouldn't interfere with freedoms, but I agree because it has shown the Turkish government is willing to see a conflict and stop it.
While there are obviously two sides to the story, the historical context from the point of view of the Greek makers and posters of the video is that their country was forcibly incorporated in the Ottoman Turk Empire for a long time and more recently, after they became independent, the Turks invaded and occupied the northern part of Greek Cyprus. Before you jump down my throat I would stress this is my best guess at their point of view, not my own! So yes the video is probably pretty childish but a sense of being kicked around will do that to people. And obviously the Turks react as they do partly because they see the same events, and others, very differently. If you want to get an idea of what this might feel like then think about England and Ireland during the worst of the troubles, times about 10?
In addition, the modern Turkish state is very much a construct and maintaining it's 'Turkishness' is very much part of that construct. Anything that is seen as challenging this it is regarded as very threatening. Some of the obvious challenges include: Kurdish or Armenian identity/separatism, challenges to the secular nature of the state, challenges to the position of the military, any suggestion that there was a genocide against the Armenians and, in this context, anything except great reverence to the state founder Ataturk who was apparently mocked in the video. Basically the Turkish Government will tend completely shut down any discussion or channel for discussion which leads to any of these 'sacred truths' being threatened.
Hence my total lack of surprise at the decision to shut down YouTube in Turkey. If something with similar content to the video had gone into a newspaper the government reaction wouldn't have been to demand a retraction or right of reply - they'd have shut down the paper. What I think is more interesting is what the govt will do if they really can't shut this kind of stuff out. And after this banning I'd expect there to be more jibes of this kind and more publicity for them. The Turkish govt probably don't have the technical ability or political clout to censor the internet in the way China has managed to do so what will they do next?
Anyway, enough of that. I'll leave you with the thought that wearing the wrong kind of hat is a criminal offence in Turkey....
A series of tubes
I also agree with the poster above that Turkey needs to have a totalitarian mentality in order to stay united as a country.
I feel the need to point out that I am Greek, but I think that I am not biased and I certainly agree that the video that started this whole thing should never have been uploaded. Noone has a right to insult someone else's historical figures.
It was the same thing with the images of mohammed! CMON THEY ARE FREAKING IMAGES/VIDEOS. Just ridiculous over-reaction.
Censoring the internets just isn't right.
i am not even surprised one bit from the Turkish reaction, and i can also bet that youtube isn't the only website they ban.