In May 2007, Turkey began censoring the internet. It started out innocent enough – according to Al Jazeera, they just wanted to block child pornography, online gambling sites, information on recreational drugs and sites which insult the country’s founding father. Today over 6000 sites have been blocked, including YouTube and parts of Google.
According to Wikipedia, other blocked sites in Turkey include: Youporn, The Pirate Bay, Megaupload, Deezer, Virb, Dailymotion, Google Groups, Tagged, Netlog, Slide, GeoCities, CareerBuilder, Alibaba, ShoutCast and WordPress.com.
Obviously Australia is not Turkey. But it’s interesting to hear that the Eastern European country’s filter began as an attempt to stop similar types of content from being accessed. Which makes it all the more important that we stand up and fight the filter now, before it’s introduced to parliament.
[Fight the Filter - Thanks Michael]
Art Nau
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 10:11 AM“Obviously Australia is not Turkey” yet. – just a quick correction
Phil Dawson
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 11:30 AMTo say this is scary is a dramatic understatement.
They keep dropping the phrase ‘blocking child porn’ to get people onside but surely it will NOT be able to block even that. Once a site gets shutdown, another will open and again and again. Perhaps the effort should be put into finding the criminals instead of creating a minor hurdle for them.
Its like trying to stop someone speeding by letting their tyres down!
It will start with so called child porn sites then grow + grow. You can tell that they will have enough backing to block gambling and pornography which will be an outrage. The fact that they aren’t illegal will be quietly skipped over for ‘our own good’. Once its in and NOT blocking pedophile sites it will never be removed because that will prove it failed miserably.
Fight it or let the dictatorship begin.
Tim Harrison
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 1:49 PMA better analogy would be;
It’s like trying to stop someone from raping a child by not looking at them and pretending they aren’t there.
Boba
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 4:00 PMToo True,
thou the child porn ring task force is knocking some serious heads they have had some MAJOR wins in recent times! so i hope they can keep this up and this will not be a reason to have a filter in years to come!.
but having a filter for any reason other then to filter information that they do now want us to see is just a lie,
it has been a mandate of the Attorney general to filter all forms of media in australia from the get go. this will just give them more control…
Ubbs
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 12:00 PMscary… very scary
Caesar Wong
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 1:40 PMOh noes Turkey! Ur doin’ it wrong!
*sigh* just because some other country’s filtering system is overly stupid and draconian doesn’t mean that more sensible types will be affected by the same disease, however little faith one has in Conroy and his cronies. Thankfully we live in a democracy where we, the people, have a say in things.
MDolley
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 3:42 PMActually, the blacklist will be secret. We the people have no say. What would stop a democratically elected government from extending the scope of the filter at a later stage?
There is currently a lot of discussion on banning the burqa; if a future Australian government decides to actually pass this as law what would stop them from also making websites advocating the wearing of the burqa part of the black list?
It is not hard to see how the filter could be a powerful tool in the wrong hands
Gorhob Perkins
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 3:45 PMWe have a say in things? Because it’s starting to look increasingly like the only person who has any say in this matter is that buffoon Conroy.
Rasmus Hald
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 8:24 AMDid you miss the part where Turkey IS a democracy? That’s been the whole point of all the demonstrations and arguing there over the last couple of years.
It’s a Eurasian country, literally straddling the continents. Cross the Bosporous bridge in Istanbul and you’re crossing between Europe and Asia.
They are being considered for membership of the EU. While there are plenty of things wrong with the EU, that consideration alone should be enough to endorse them as a relatively democratic country.
However, they too have problems with their Family First types attempting to strengthen the influence of religion on politics.
Obviously Turkey isn’t Australia, but I don’t think it’s as different and you’d like to think. The whole point of the article is that it started as a well-intended child-pornography-blocking filter much like the one Conroy suggested. It has since devolved into something much broader which is what happens with most projects when governments and/or politicans minds change.
Exadios
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 11:02 AMYou need to understand the history of censorship in Australia. Up until the 1970s censorship in Australia was extreme. Even now it is quite harsh. Most of what appears on the “RC” list in Australia would not be banned in other “western” countries – particularly such countries as Canada, the US and Brasil.
Listening to some of the supporters of the censorship in Australia I get the distinct impression that they are planning to implement a 1970s Australian censorship regime on the internet.
To those who think that Australia is not Turkey – think again. It has been in the past and is going to be in the future if the planned censorship is implemented.
tarkan
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 2:04 PMthis is actually a good thing, why do we need to have stupid sites like that anyway. this is why we have honor and dignity in our beautiful country and others do not. a country that has too much freedom without discipline is not a country at all
MDolley
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 3:48 PMStupid sites, like YouTube? Have you seen double rainbow guy? How can you want to block the YouTubes?
But seriously, you say “why do we need to have stupid sites like that anyway. this is why we have honor and dignity in our beautiful country and others do not.”
If Australians are honourable and dignified why are we being treated like children who need to be protected from bad pages on the internet.
The alternative to the filter is easy. If you see something that offends you online
A) Go to a different website
B) If the website contains child abuse material report it to the AFP
Travis
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 8:07 AM“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” – Benjamin Franklin
Yango
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 2:11 PMTurkey is not part of Europe…..Eastern or otherwise.
Seamus Byrne
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 2:17 PMThey get included in Eurovision. And that’s as official as it gets.
Yango
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 2:20 PMMind=blown
Your right!
James-Mac
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 2:32 PMY’know what’s going to happen though?
It will go like this:
“According to this report from Al Jezeera…” and they’re going to say:
“Isn’t that the network that Osama Bin Laden is always on?”
“It’s an Middle Eastern news network”
“Middle East, as in terrorist, of course terrorists are going to be against it”
DoctorOwl
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 5:24 PMYouporn is blocked on the current Australian list.
clint
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 6:36 PMI havent checked myself but i didnt know that site had anything illegal, (along with a few others i noticed which are grey area sites) ie. not childporn or illegal. . I guess next on the list would be playboy and penthouse. Next only educational kid safe sites, and no negative views on the government. The government will control the information.
Michael
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 8:20 AMThe current list is an order of magnitude more broad than what they’d be including in the proposed blacklist. The current list includes ALL adult content.. it wasn’t designed for mandatory filtering and it will not be used for mandatory filtering.
DogGunn
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 1:02 AMYou mean parts of it. No need to pretend that the whole site is on the blacklist.
Sara Ralphilie
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 7:35 PMAlibaba which is headquartered in the cayman islands is the largest online scam network in the world. They are getting so large that Alibaba.com group is stealing millions of dollars every week from Americans in scams.
Do you think the site should be blocked? and censored from the public?
I do, since they are stealing and robbing people worldwide. This is a global international crime organization and I think if google censored and blocked access to the site, it would be a good thing.
Gav
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 8:13 AMSally, Google cannot “censor” or “block access to” any other site. At most, they can refuse to link to it.
And if they did, it wouldn’t matter anyway, because you’ve already provided a link (of sorts) in your post.
See how censorship works? IT DOESN’T!
Chris
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 11:49 AMAlibaba.com is just a big directory portal, kind of like eBay but for wholesalers and manufacturers. I don’t see you calling for eBay to be blocked, even though plenty of scammers operate on that site as well.
Gmetal
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 9:06 PMDie Family First, Die. Thats why the labor party want this, to satisfy the crazy feilding guy, who believes that the earth was created in 7 days LOL. what a joke, how can he be relied upon to be in THE SENATE???
simon
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 11:43 PMYouporn.com is working on my portal. no spams or scams.
As a libertarian, the title of this article is correct. No censorship is best.
/me reads 120 days of sodom. thank you internet.
Syd Walker
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 3:44 AM“Obviously Australia is not Turkey”
Very true.
Turkey has an honest and courageous Prime Minister. Turkey does not have a history of being first cab off the rank to join illegal wars. Remember Gallipoli, where Turks and Australians last fought pitched battles when foreign troops invaded? It’s in Turkey – not in Australia.
Imagine how much worse our Government might misuse powers to censor the internet.
Peter
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 4:13 AMWe should block ministers who arent qualified for their department and have zero formal training in the area they look after from holding position of minister. That would be some possitive blocking. I’m in the UK at the moment and i’ve witnessed first hand a filter system impossed by the government which when I tested it, it blocked a third of my favourite list. And no, non of my favourites have anything to do with porn or crime or anything remotely dodgy. I was left scratching my head. I rang the ISP and they told me that they could do nothing since it was managed by the goverment. Censorship is bad. Say no kids.
bora
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 5:11 AMWell I am from Turkey and the situation is that we don’t have any established filter laws/rules and I think all of the bans are via court order, which means it only takes a judge to decide that the content on the said website is illegal under Turkish law.
Actually, what we have is a freedom of expression problem, and internet is just a reflection of it. We still have archaic laws about insulting Ataturk, Turkishness, “moral values of the nation”. It should be noted that a lot of the bans are deemed as contradictory to country’s “moral and ethical values”. Which is, of course, an absolute bullshit.
There is a sense in our law that we are a special nation and Ataturk was a kind of semi-deity and we have such high morals that we’d never watch porn, etc etc..
There is a constitutional reform plan which will be decided by a referendum in September (public vote) If it passes it will liberalize some of the problematic clauses BUT as a Turkish liberal I firmly believe that we need a COMPLETE re-write of the constitution and justice, real justice not jingoistic, nostalgic nonsense, should be restored.
This is a very long story to be explained but I tried to reveal the parts related to the subject.
By the way, Turkey is in both southeastern Europe and western Asia and we mostly love Aussies.
Greetings!
Marc
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 8:57 AMThe whole concept of censorship is extremly patronising. Eseentially, the government doesn’t trust me to not be responsible in what I look at on the internet.
Why should I be treated like a child?
giltapple
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 4:04 PMLet’s suppose that a bloke in your area gets his kiddy-kicks from DVDs delivered in the post, whether from overseas or local suppliers. This canny laddie leaves no electronic trail of his peculiar taste, and does not need to do so while non-http pathways exist. Should our censorious and knee-jerk Nanny State then make AusPost scrutinize the content, before its delivery, of every piece of mail to an area? Or make posties deliver mail from push-scooters? Or oblige their couriers to deliver packages from vans with no tyres? Or just shoot posties and couriers at the mail-centre? Then, at least, every household in the area could share and savour the joys of officiously inconvenient intervention in a public distribution-medium.
As always, illicit or repellent traffic is most effectively stopped at its source rather than in transit. And our bloke can then just pick up his jollies from some local entrepreneur who has gladly replaced the overseas suppliers.
It is precisely because law-abiding citizens are easier to oppress than malefactors are that this misbegotten proposal for ISP-level ‘filtration’ (recte: censorship) has not attracted the massed opposition that it deserves.
Six munce ago i cooden spel bonded serf and now look i are wun.
thor
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 4:37 PMIts easy to get rid of. In France, politicians who voted for the 3 strikes law are now scared for their political lives in the next election. The same thing will go for censorship – you are either for freedom, or you support censorship and engage in activities that the Nazi’s would be proud of.
birdie
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 5:46 PMSo we ornithologists will no longer be able to research which kind of tit we are looking at.
Emanuel
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 11:08 PMCensorship is wrong because &*(@^#%!)*#^%
Matt
Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 7:07 AMWhat is wrong with censorship?