I read today that the Turkish court has banned Turkish Internet users from accessing YouTube. The reason is that recently there has been a “virtual war” of sorts between Greeks and Turks who are using YouTube to post videos that insult each other’s cultures. The offending video reportedly insults Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s early 20th C revolutionary founder.
The CBC appropriated a disappointing Associated Press article on the matter and ends with the following:
“It’s not the first time YouTube has been banned. The Australian state of Victoria recently banned it from government schools in a crackdown on cyber-bullying after a gang of male students videotaped their assault on a 17-year-old girl on the outskirts of Melbourne.”
It is already troublesome to see that schools are banning YouTube access, danah boyd writes on similar problematic practices involving the Deleting Online Predators Act in the United States. It is always unfortunate that, as my grandmother would say “one bad apple has to spoil the lot”.
However, I think the linking the particular instance of assault to the large-scale restriction of communication technologies because a video was taken badly by a government that sends people to prison for “Insulting Turkishness”. I recoil at the notion of the assault on the 17 year old, and certainly would want the perpetrators to come to justice. But I certainly don’t equate posting a video of someone hurling an insult at a historical figure in the category of a crime, and certainly it doesn’t warrant restricting the freedoms of the Turkish citizenry to free access to the Internet – but unfortunately the Turkish government does.
This illustrates the very slippery slope that comes with considering too heavy-handed regulation of communications technologies. At points it may be useful to monitor activity (such as porn in schools, or bullying) but not to the point of shutting down access to these sites. In the case of the Turksih, it’s just another excercise in exerting control over the population, a common practice inTurkey, where the events of early 20th C Armenian Genocide are not even taught in Turkish schools (not even without the term genocide) thus prohibiting informed debate. If governments shut down access to the opinions of those with whom they disagree, then effective debate is nullified - which, of course, would be a reasonable goal if you were into controlling your citezenry. Of course internet restriction is nothing new at the level of the nation-state, remember Google China’s capitulation? See the difference?
Todayszaman, an English-language Turkish newspaper had the following headline in their online version: “YouTube broadcasts Greek marches full of hatred toward Turks”. This reads like it lays the blame for the videos at the feet of YouTube, as if they had a content meeting and decided “Yes, yes, we’ll lead with the Greek anti-Turk marches today.” The article goes on to translate the lyrics of a song reportedly videotaped as sung by a Greek military unit:
There was a ship, a tank-carrying ship. It left from Volos to plant fear. It goes to the shores of Little Asia (Turkey). To spread fire and ashes all over Turkey. It was full of sea marines. They blew the heads of any Turks they could find into the air. The heroes died opening the road to Hagia Sophia. I will march to Hagia Sophia, take off the Turkish caliphate sign and plant a cross there. Only then will God shed light on İstanbul and the Greek national march will ring from every corner.
I don’t really know what much of that actually means, but it certainly sounds like a little religious nationalism to me!
The Guardian indicates that there were other insults, including accusations that Ataturk was homosexual, and that so are the Turks themselves. So not only is the Turkish government against insults in general, they also have a deep-seeded homophobia, which of course doesn’t surprise me since they are willing to enact bans on communications technology, deny genocide, and imprison dissenters.
So after reading all of that, I found this blog, a pro-Turkish tourism site where the writer has used links to YouTube videos in order to promote tourism in Turkey.
I guess the YouTube execs should have led with those.
Or this. (and read the comments, they’re priceless)
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