What is shown here are websites that are - or temporarly were - blocked in Turkey (as of 19th April, 2012, updated 13th Nov, 2013). Certainly Turkey is not the only country applying internet filtering measurements, and it is also not just "developing" or authoritarian countries such as China or North Korea, Saudia Arabia or the Emirates that deny access to certain sites. Secret filter lists where leaked from democratic Western countries such as Denmark, Norway or Finland as well. Restricting access to websites or domains is common practise across the globe, under whatever pretext in may be (normally terrorism, child pornograhpy, hate speech,..)
"Stretched between Asia and Europe, Turkey amalgamates the cultural, historical, and sociopolitical diversity of two continents. The government has implemented legal and institutional reforms driven by the country's ambitions to become a European Union member state, while at the same time demonstrating its high sensitivity to defamation and other ''inappropriate'' online content, which has resulted in the closure of a number of local and international Web sites." [1]
What makes Turkey especially interesting: It is documented to a certain degree and its history [2] of on and off blockage of complete sites such as youtube, wordpress and similar, erronous restrictions due to typos or misspellings, reveals a difficult struggle and some inherit problems of the task to actually deny access to information that is considered illegal within national borders.
Roughly 77 per cent of these presented sites are categorized as Pornography by popular filtering software. For sure it contains material that is illegal not only under Turkish laws but under many if not nearly all countries's jurisdications. However, it also includes blant restrictions of freedom of speech and sites that just are potential tools that could could be used for illegal as well as legal activities or unwanted political information flows.
The growing global trend (including Western countries) to filter out and / or monitor illegal or unwanted information in the internet on national basis under the pre-text of child pornography, hate speech, copyright infringements or terrorism is alarming. What kind of solution for what kind of problem should that be? How democratic and transparent is the process of implementing (national) filter lists and techniques? Who decides? Who controls the blockages? How easy and fast is it to get something back online that was blocked due to false claims, typographic errorrs or misspellings?
As we know, there is criminal activity and illegal content on the internet, as is everywhere else. The internet is not and unlegislated area or legal vaccuum, as some may claim. But it does not stop at national boundaries, it is transnational and global (as - btw - our world is nowadays, and as a lot of other problems are, that needs to be addressed by global cooperation as well). Further obervations by Nart Villneuve's "Analysis of the Origins of International Efforts to Protect Children Online" reveal:
"Despite a near worldwide consensus on the illegality of the trafficking of images of child abuse (often referred to as child pornography) on the Internet, effective international cooperation on this issue remains elusive. Instead, an increasing number of countries are simply hiding online child sexual abuse through the cosmetic practice of Internet filtering [..] rather than cooperating internationally to remove such content at its (foreign) source and subsequently prosecuting those who produce and traffic in images of the sexual abuse of children." [3]
"The result is a situation in which domestic organizations that have been delegated authority to combat the proliferation of child abuse images online lack the willingness or institutional capacity for dynamic cooperation. The introduction of filtering technology reduces the incentive for organizations with an already narrow conception of cooperation to further engage with relevant counterparts across international boundaries. Those engaging in the proliferation of images of child abuse online remain largely unaffected by filtering technology, as well as takedown and removal efforts. They are able to exploit the lack of cooperation among international actors. Unlike the forms of cooperation emerging in other areas of content removal, such as those targeting phishing Web sites, efforts to combat child pornography are framed and narrowly understood as the domain of states. There remain considerable barriers to dynamic forms of cooperation as a result." [4]
To sum up - quoting the same analysis, but matching pretty much across-the-board:
"Problematizing cooperation contributes to a better understanding of the complex challenges facing the international community in the 21st century. It suggests that our existing institutions may be unable to cope with the demands of problems exacerbated by the proliferation of ICTs. It suggests that new norms and mechanisms designed to promote a deeper form of dynamic cooperation may be necessary." [5]
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1. OpenNet Initiative: Country Profile Turkey ↩
2. Wikipedia: Blocking_of_Internet_sites ↩
3. Nart Villneuve: Barriers to Cooperation. An Analysis of the Origins of International Efforts to Protect Children Online, In: Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain: Access Controlled. The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace, MIT Press 2010, http://access.opennet.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/accesscontrolled-chapter-4.pdf ↩
4. Ibid. ↩
5. Ibid. ↩