Tag: New Internet Controls

Turks bid farewell to the Internet in the face of brutal censorship/surveillance law

Turks bid farewell to the Internet in the face of brutal censorship/surveillance law

Cory Doctorow

Turkey’s brutal new Internet law grants the Turkish Telecommunications Directorate the power to arbitrarily censor Web-pages to the individual URL level, much like the Great Firewall of China — meaning that specific articles that are critical of the state can be censored while leaving the remainder of the site intact. It criminalizes “harmful” Internet messages and hosting “harmful” content, and requires long-term data-retention by ISPs, meaning the state and police will be able to access records of your entire online activity. It will also mandate the use of deep packet inspection to detect and disrupt technologies for evading censorship and maintaining privacy.

The law was passed in a process rife with corruption, secrecy and other undemocratic irregularities. Turkey’s #OccupyGezi uprising galvanized a diverse opposition that took to the streets against corruption and repression, spread using the Internet. It documented police brutality that shocked the world and uploaded the videos to Youtube. As the forces of reaction and oppression in Turkey move to consolidate their power, it’s clear that this law is intended to prevent any further use of networks to organize and publicize opposition movements.

On Medium, Ahmet A. Sabancı has posted a poignant farewell to the Internet from Istanbul:

We, as people from Turkey, had a great time with you. You teach us so many things that we couldn’t learn from anywhere else. We had lots of great memories with you. You were always there whenever we needed you. But we have to say goodbye.

Turkish parliament passed the bill which is going to kill you. Maybe it’ll not kill you directly but you’ll be crippled and we can’t do everything we want together. There’s a little chance for you -presidential veto- but like I said, it’s a little chance.

I know you’re not ready for this but I have to tell you what will happen after tonight. I know hearing this will hurt you but you have to get ready for these. Because these seems inevitable.

via Turks bid farewell to the Internet in the face of brutal censorship/surveillance law – Boing Boing.

February 8, 2014
Turkey Arrests 32 Suspected Hackers After Protests Against Government Internet Filters

by Sarah Kessler

Turkish police have arrested 32 people that they believe played a role in taking down government websites on Thursday.

A loosely affiliated group of hackers known as Anonymous attacked the websites in response to Internet filters that Turkey plans to implement in August, The Wall Street Journal reports. Government officials say the mandatory filters are intended to protect web users, but many consider the filters to be a censorship effort.

Websites claiming to represent Anonymous, which is known for launching coordinated cyberattacks on corporate and government websites, announced plans to “fight” the Turkish government in response to the filters.

The 32 arrests were made on Sunday, the day of Turkey’s national elections, in 12 different cities. Eight of the people arrested were minors and one was a lawyer, according to Turkish news outlet Anadolu Ajansi.

Turkey isn’t the only country cracking down on hackers.

On June 10, police in Spain arrested three people described as members of Anonymous after they found evidence suggesting that the suspects were involved in attacks on numerous government websites, as well as the cyberattack that shut down Sony’s PlayStation Network for more than a month.

June 15, 2011
Marchers protest new Turkish Web filtering rules

Marchers protest new Turkish Web filtering rules

From Yesim Comert, CNN

May 15, 2011 — Updated 2041 GMT (0441 HKT)

Thousands of Turks march Sunday in Istanbul to protest against Internet filtering regulations set to take effect in August

Thousands of Turks march Sunday in Istanbul to protest against Internet filtering regulations set to take effect in August

Istanbul (CNN) — Several thousand opponents of new Internet filtering rules, set to take effect in Turkey in August, marched in protest in Istanbul on Sunday.

Demonstrators carried signs in Turkish and English reading “Don’t touch my Internet” and “We don’t need protection,” while they chanted slogans against website censorship.

Internet users must choose among four filtering options, including family, children, domestic or standard settings, as a part of Turkey’s “Safe Internet Service.”

The regulations are designed to protect children from indecent online content, according to BTK, the prime minister’s information technology board. Critics argue that it is not clear how the filtering system will work.

The marchers stopped several times to stage brief sit-ins during the two-hour route from the Taksim Square to the end of Istiklal Street.

Organizers claimed the marcher numbered in the “thousands,” which appeared to be accurate to a CNN reporter on the scene.

The new filtering rules will be enforced beginning August 22, the government said.

A “Enemies of the Internet” report issued this month by Reporters Without Borders included Turkey on its 2011 list of “countries under surveillance.”

The BTK was “not fooling anyone when it claims to be rendering a service to Internet users by giving them a choice between a lot of restrictions and fewer restrictions,” the report said.

Turkey already blocks more than 7,000 websites, “in most cases without reference to any court,” the report said.

via Marchers protest new Turkish Web filtering rules – CNN.com.

May 16, 2011
Thousands March in Istanbul Against Turkish Internet Censorship

Thousands of Turkish demonstrators poured into central Istanbul today to protest against the government’s Internet censorship.

Haberturk newspaper said 50,000 joined a protest centered on the city’s Taksim Square, while CNN-Turk reported “hundreds of thousands” taking to the streets in demonstrations across the country.

New regulations from Turkey’s Internet Technologies and Communications Authority set to come into effect on Aug. 22 will require Internet service providers to offer a choice of four filtering options: family, child, domestic or standard. Many websites are expected to be blocked as a result of the filtering measures, Zaman newspaper reported.

More than 600,000 people joined a Facebook page named “Internetime Dokunma!” or “Don’t Touch My Internet!” The group’s organizers say Turkish authorities have already blocked 60,000 websites.

To contact the reporter on this story: Benjamin Harvey in Ankara at bharvey11@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

via Thousands March in Istanbul Against Turkish Internet Censorship – Bloomberg.

May 16, 2011
Internet Freedom in Turkey: System Error

For some reason, Turkey, which boasts one of the most educated and technologically savvy populations in the region, has had a particularly hard time addressing internet freedom. In a country that boasts of its capacity to serve as a model of democracy in the Middle East, freedom of expression on the internet has been a long-standing problem; the Turkish government’s instinct has consistently been to apply broad, clumsy bans on any content that might possibly be objectionable.

It is part of a more general problem of creeping censorship. The Turkish press, as discussed in previous posts, has come under increased pressure. In recent years, Turkey has been particularly aggressive in attempting to police radio and television for “undermining the morality of minors.” Sex and the City II, for example, was banned from cable television because its representation of gay marriage was deemed dangerous to the Turkish family. Tobacco smoking villains in the famous cartoon TinTin similarly resulted in fines from the ever watchful – and humorless – eyes of Turkish bureaucrats. The result has been a media culture that has increasingly engaged in self-censorship to avoid fines and possible closure.

The Turkish government has been equally zealous in its policing of the internet. Youtube has been banned repeatedly, and for years at a time. The ban was implemented so clumsily that other Google-owned sites were banned as well. After a copyright complaint, Google’s blogging site, Blogspot, which hosts thousands of individual blogging sites, has similarly been banned. Tens of thousands of internet sites are currently banned in Turkey. Most recently, the popular website satirical website, Sourtimes, which has almost two hundred thousand views per day, has been targeted. Satire, apparently, is a dangerous thing in Turkey.

The situation seems likely to get worse before it gets better. Turkish government regulators plan to institute mandatory systems that will automatically filter web content starting August 22. The Telecommunications Directorate has produced a list of 138 “illegal words” that cannot be used on websites. Thus, a Turkish website devoted to “hot jazz” would run afoul of the law (“hot” is banned) as would domain names with terms like gay, confidential, confession, local, or blonde. Presumably, the bureaucrats at the directorate were not aware of the irony when they also banned the word “free.”

For good reason Turkish internet users fear “the death of the internet” and a continuation of the sort of creeping cultural repression that has been seen elsewhere. Media savvy Turks have already begun a web-based protest movement. The question is whether anybody will be able to access it after August 22.

via Internet Freedom in Turkey: System Error | Human Rights Now – Amnesty International USA Blog.

May 6, 2011
Critics Challenge New Internet Controls in Turkey

Turkey already bans more websites than any other European country. Now the government is set to introduce new controls that officials say are needed to protect children. Critics fear they represent an effort control the web.

The Turkish government calls its new Internet controls Safe Use of the Internet. They are scheduled to take effect in August and will require all Internet users to choose from one of four filter profiles operated by their server provider. Law Professor Yamman Akdeniz at Bilgi University in Istanbul says the measures open the door to government censorship of the Internet.

“We are concerned that the government [will] enforce and develop a censorship infrastructure,” said Akdeniz. “Even the standard profile is a filter system and the problem is government mandated, government controlled and there are no other countries within the EU or Council of Europe that has a similar system. And the decision also states if anyone who tries to circumvent the system, further action may be taken.”

Government officials say the new regulations are needed to protect families, particularly children, from pornography. But critics say it is unclear which websites can be banned and for what reasons, and the regulations can also be used to silence political websites. Nadire Mater is the head of the Turkish human-rights web page Bianet.

“Depending on the government, depending on the ministers, one can be put on the blacklist,” said Mater. “This is not a democracy. We’ve experienced this before, because police, from time to time, they distributed these blacklists, and in some Internet cafes or companies we were getting the complaints from the visitors they were saying that we don’t have any access [to] Bianet.”

Bianet criticizes the government for establishing the new measures by decree, rather than by a vote in parliament and is challenging the new controls in court. Web freedom is a concern within the European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join. EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fule stressed those concerns before the EU parliament earlier this year.

“Freedom of press means guaranteeing a public space for free debate, including on the Internet,” said Fule. “The European Parliament’s draft resolution rightly underlines these issues.”

That concern centers on Turkey’s record of courts banning more websites than any other European country. In 2009, the state stopped releasing figures, but the latest number is believed to be in excess of 12,000. Again, Professor Akdeniz.

“Several thousands web sites have been blocked,” said Akdeniz. “And although the government claims that they predominantly block access to pornographic websites, several hundred alternative-media websites, especially websites dealing with the Kurdish debate, are blocked access to for political reasons.”

via Critics Challenge New Internet Controls in Turkey | Europe | English VOA.

April 26, 2011