Censorship: Twitter, Youtube Defy Turkish Courts, Are Banned – Facebook Complies

Barbara Boland | April 6, 2015
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Twitter and Youtube refused to comply with a Turkish court ruling demanding they remove photos of a deadly siege where a prosecutor was taken hostage by two militants in Istanbul. The ban on Facebook was lifted when the social media network complied with the ruling.

The photos that were shared on social media showed the militants holding a gun to Mehmet Kiraz’s head. Kiraz was the prosecutor in a controversial case and the two militants had alleged ties to the outlawed far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C.)

The court ruling blocked 166 websites and banned Turkish newspapers from publishing the photos.

Prime Minister Davutoğlu called publishing the photos “immorality” and accused publishers of “being tools of terrorist propaganda.”

In an editorial, the Hürriyet Daily News, one of the papers that defied the ban, wrote:

"We just want to do journalism. We do not want to face bans with policemen waiting on street corners, trying to prevent our colleagues from doing their work.”

The seven Turkish newspapers that published photos of the hostage taking are now subject to a criminal investigation.

This isn’t the first time Turkey has cracked down on freedom of the press. In March 2014 it imposed blocks of recordings that claimed to show corruption of senior officials.

From July to December 2014, the last year Twitter has reports for, Turkey filed more requests to remove content from Twitter than any other country. Twitter complies 50% of the time with Turkey’s requests to remove content.

Number of requests Turkey has made for Google to remove content. Image Source: Google

Google, the owner of Youtube, reports that from July to December 2013, the last year for which it posts data, 53% of Turkey’s removal requests were for “obscenity/nudity.” Google reports that it complies with removal requests from governmental agencies 12% of the time.

As I previously reported, in January Turkey threatened to ban Facebook unless the site removed pages that insulted the Prophet Muhammad. 

The ruling comes just days after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg publicly declared his support for free speech, saying that, “Facebook has always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas." On January 9 he posted: “We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world.”

Despite Zuckerburg’s tough talk, statistics released by Facebook show that Facebook removed 3,624 “pieces of content” from July to December 2014. 

In this case, Facebook confirmed to MRCTV that they have restricted access "to certain content" due to "valid court orders from the authorities in Turkey" -- and that although they have complied, they "are appealing."

 

 

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