I recently came back to Turkey to see my family, and am shocked that so many websites have been banned by the Ministry of Communication based on some obscure legislation.

Someone had told me about how you could no longer access YouTube because of some videos slandering Ataturk´s memory. Although I disagreed with the decision at the time, ı never realized the extent of cencorship until ı was back in Turkey.

Aside from Youtube, a lot of other sites have also been banned.

I cannot believe that a site like blogger has been banned completely due to a few accounts posting garbage on the net. Now, I cannot read a lot of my favorite blogs, which had nothing to do with politics.

Another disturbing trend is also the ban on sites based on ´müstehcenlik´. There was a clip of a news reporter who swallowed a fly on live tv on Nothintoxic.com, which has all sorts of amateur videos of accidents, bloopers etc. It has been banned. Humoron.com has been banned.

I was wondering how other Turks & foreigners feel about these rather draconian measures. I tried to find the legislation to find out abut the criteria, but didn´t succeed. ıt seems as if the legisiation can be interpreted and pulled in any direction depending on the personal opinions of those occupying the power seats.

The definitions of ´müstehcenlik´, ´personal insult´ etc aren´t clear at all.

Perhaps the next step will be to ban skirts that are above the knees together with pointed high-heels.

 I´m surprised you got through passport control, looking like that

And the worst part is that most Turks will never even know that they are being censored! It is disgraceful. We are talking about democracy, fighting for democracy in Turkey and the country is being censored like this? This is like an authoritarian state.

this is akp style democracy which our so called liberals love.

I noticed only Youtube being banned. For now i didnt miss any other websites. Yes, it is disturbing cause youtube is my favorite site and i feel limited which i hate.

This one is banned too for some unknown reason:

www.geocities.com

I have ´The Famous Turkish Cookery Book´ on my favourites but can no longer access it on the net as the address is: www.geocities.com/ft/cookery

I don´t think it´s censored as I - in the Netherlands - can´t access it either, it says: sorry, the page requested is not found.

Same in UK.

Stopped paying the subscription I guess! 

What is amazing is that they haven´t seem to have learned anything from the Chinese government´s attempts to ban sites on the internet. Like Clinton said, cencorship of the intenet is like trying to nail jello on the wall. In AKP´s case, the jello may be substituted with yoghurt.

A lot of the sites that have been banned under müstehcenlik seem to be banned one day and operational the next. Some hardcore sites are fully functional and yet wickedweasel-like bikini sites are unreachable. They must have something deep against tiny thongs, visible ass-cracks, and see-through micro bikinis. If they are after the porn sites on the net, they should try to ban them all, as they all fall under the müstehcenlik factor (according to their beliefs.)

Additionally, when you ban a site lke blogger.com, you also ban thousands of bloggers who have nothing to do with this act. If they are going to ban a site collectively because ofa few venom-spewing clowns, then they might as well ban all major search engines like google or yahoo as well.