Web Censorship Is So Bad in Turkey That Blogs Are Shutting Themselves Down In Protest
The problem has gotten so bad that Turkish blogs are now banning themselves in protest. The fake bans started with Firat Yildiz, who put this message up on his blog:
Bu siteye erişim kendi kararıyla engellenmiştir
which roughly translates to:
The access to this web site is prevented by its owner’s free will.
Then another Turkish blogger, Selim Yoruk, created this page with a piece of code that lets any blogger easily add the same message to his homepage. Nearly 200 Turkish blogs have (temporarily) shut themselves down in this manner. The point is to show Turkish Web surfers what the Internet would look like if the censorship continues unabated. The protest will last until Wednesday.
(Photo by John Walker).