Turkish officials reach for YouTube's joystick

Google has given in to demands from Turkey to operate YouTube under a Turkish web domain, thus allowing the country's officials to patrol its content and the country's courts to throw out whatever is deemed objectionable. As noted by Reuters, the move not only means that Ankara can exercise more rigid control over the material …

[Anonymous Coward]

TOR To The Rescue

TOR with two hops can deliver video content most of the time. Of course that means patching the TOR source code. Look for the macro DEFAULT_ROUTE_LEN and make that a variable. Then you can dial up and down security (and bandwidth in the other direction) from two to seven. For some reason I don't really understand you cannot do more than seven hops.

To view videos critical of Atatürk or The Graceful Prophet And Child Molester, two hops are sufficient and will provide enough bandwidth.

Finally, yeah, Turkey is still part of the orient and they all have more or less serious problems with free speech and freedom from State Molestation. Whatever they say about "Europe".

[LarsG]

People in power

People in power want to keep the power they have at all costs and to do that they have to destroy any detrimental information what ever the cost. The father of modern Turkey, Attaturk wanted a secular country where all people were equal. He would be turning in his grave if he could see what was happening.

Thank god I live in a democracy, I think.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: People in power

Now Turkey is run by one of the darkest, most evil Islamic cult ever came to face of earth thanks to one of largest IT espionage operations aka "Ergenekon"

Some, like that tool at top is not different from Jewish large businesses helped Hitler in 30s.

I would say "it is too late".

Iran is a child toy compared to these fanatic, sinister freaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

That Is Why The Muslim World Is Still In The Medival Age

Freedom of Speech->Scientific Progress, less corruption->Economic Success->Better Life, Better Medicine, Less hard work.

No Freedom of Speech->Shitty Lifestyle, broken Economy, Corruption, Hard Work.

The rich gulf states are only wealthy because all the work is done by Europeans and Asian slaves.

They once were at the leading edge, after all the word "Algorithm" stems from a certain Al'Quarizmi and our numerals are also from Arabia. Did they have a more open culture then ?

[Captain Hogwash]

Re: our numerals are also from Arabia

From India actually.

[sabroni]

Re: our numerals are also from Arabia

That's the bit in that post you thought needed correcting? Fuck it, I'm off to the daily mail to read some sensible comments...

[Captain Hogwash]

Re: our numerals are also from Arabia

It's called understatement.

[John Deeb]

Re: That Is Why The Muslim World Is Still In The Medival Age

Mr Memory Safe, your formula is more demonstrably medieval in nature than any country on Earth. It doesn't explain why Turkey and Indonesia (the most populous Muslim-majority nation) are in the G20 and are ranked higher in some regards than lets say Australia or South-Africa. But for those you have other formulas, I'm sure.

Apart from the question of how "broken" the economies of current ruling civilizations are or aren't, the question of why one country developed so much wealth and trade but some other didn't appears to be very complex. Historians could outline many factors like trade monopolies, war capacity, suppression, exploitation or slavery as reasons why one nation could develop on a sound foundation while a host of others just didn't have those fundamentals to prosper on. Others would point out geography, chance, philosophy or ideology - but not as much as reasons why it is like it is today but as deciding factors on crucial forks in the road, like for example in the 19th century.

If freedom of speech would mean a 99% increase of uninformed rants in the media, perhaps even that type fo freedom should not be overvalued. I rather would bet on countries with the best degree of education for the masses. What is freedom if it cannot be used rationally after all? Disaster?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: That Is Why The Muslim World Is Still In The Medival Age

G20 is based on SIZE of your economy (and politics) not quality of life

Lichtenstein and Switzerland aren't in it - India and South Africa are.

[James 51]

I thought the point of the internet was that you could access information that wasn't hosted locally.

[badmonkey]

Good luck

with those EU ambitions, Turkey.

Is youtube.am or youtube.com.am still available?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good luck

EU ambitions? Without EU's, especially Germans help, Turkey wouldn't transform to this state. All for short term plans. Now they are staring at the monster they created but it is too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Turkeys law

Oh sorry, that should be Turkey's law.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Google will pay tax in turkey

Yes, like it pays tax in the UK for google.co.uk

[Destroy All Monsters]

I draw you a Mohammed!

Well, seeing how Turkey seems to become a main pivot for a raging Middle East conflagration involving Syria, Iraq, the Kurds, the Tans, Israel and, God forbid, Iran (I hope the next US prez has enough backbone to flip Bibi off and tell him to perform the Israeli version of Russian Roulette alone, but odds aren't good), a little censorship sure will come in handy.

[Matt Bryant]

Now, now.

Doesn't the El Reg Kontroller know that this kind of reporting of censorship will just get this webby blocked from Turkey.

/<Lightbulb!> Starts to hatch ways mention of Armenian Genocide can be inserted into online games such as WoW to get rid of Turkish scammers.......

[Robert Helpmann??]

Confused on the Concept

The politician added that that Turkey had, over the years, made it clear to internet companies that if they wanted to operate in the country, they also needed to be "resident here".

How refreshing that other countries have politicians just as confused as Ted Stevens on what the internet is and how it works.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is el reg banned in Turkey yet?

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a girly man!

(It's the principle of the thing.)

[Matt Bryant]

Re: Is el reg banned in Turkey yet?

"Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a girly man!...." Whilst I agree with the sentiment, I have to point out that Mr Ataturk was, by most accounts, not a girly man. Apparently, as well as liking a good dance, he did drink like a fish (cirrhosis of the liver killed him IIRC) and was of the opinion that Islam was the biggest anchor preventing Turkey from catching up with the Europeans. So, obviously, if we are to prevent the poor Turks from being blocked off from their daily dose of El Reg, we'd better venerate the memory of Mr Ataturk by reiterating that dancing and getting plastered is great and Islam is a backwards cult that can only stifle the development of a country.

/The Devine Being icon is for Mr Atatuk, obviously. REEEEEspec'!