Protests Against Internet Filtering and Censorship in Turkey

Turkish internet users have had enough. The government regularly blocks websites it doesn't like, backed up by rather draconian laws and liberal interpretations, some as big as YouTube, and now it plans to introduce voluntary internet filters that would block certain websites and content. It also plans to ban some keywords from being used in domain names.

Thousands of people took to the streets in tens of cities yesterday to protest the new plans and to ask for an unregulated, uncensored internet.

With slogans such as "Don’t Touch My Internet," "We will not bow to censorship," "Yes We Ban!," and "The Internet is ours and will remain ours!," the crowds protested against what they saw as state censorship.

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority, or BTK, which regulates the internet in the country wants to introduce a number of filters to block content, to varying levels depending on what the users want.

The idea, as is always the case, is to "protect the children," since parents are in no way capable of doing it themselves, so the state has to intervene.

Four filtering levels have been proposed, the "standard" level would allow all websites through, well, all websites that are not blocked altogether already in the country.

The other three levels are "children," "family" and "domestic." The government says that, since users have a choice, there should be no issue. But protesters were not convinced and believed that this was just a first step and the government would not abstain from abusing the system.

The government also plans to ban certain terms from being used in domain names. It says that the ban is restricted to vulgar words, but some reports that it goes way beyond obvious terms and into rather common ones. It's unclear whether the protests will achieve anything, but they can't hurt either.