 |
Informatics Foundation head: Facebook ban out of question
TBV President Serhat Özeren noted in a statement yesterday that Facebook had received complaints for featuring offensive content against a political leader in Turkey. The Ankara Court of First Instance issued a ruling that could serve as a provisional remedy for complaints concerning content on Facebook.
“The court did not mention any of the applicable punishments, including the restriction of the IP address and domain name. Therefore, it does not seem technically possible to enforce the court ruling,” Özeren said. He also stressed that the court ruling is not enforceable legally because the content in question is not under the jurisdiction of the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB), which is authorized to take action against Internet crimes according to Law No. 5651.
Law No. 5651 began as an effort to protect children from harmful content and prevent the encouragement of suicide, prostitution and drug use, but over time the law has paved the way for applications that would restrict a societal right to have access to information. Some restrictions that have been put into effect under the scope of the law are reminiscent of political censorship methods.
“It is important for courts to use the method of ‘warn/remove’ in making decisions over websites with harmful content in order to prevent the prohibition of many well-intentioned websites. “The TİB has taken a step to ban access to insulting content against a political party leader. Facebook removed the content as a result of these attempts,” Özeren said.
Meanwhile, Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım said earlier this week that public access to popular social networking site Facebook may be cut, but people should not be hasty in their judgment as it is an issue of the rule of law. Yıldırım was referring to about 30 Facebook closure decisions by Turkish courts in response to cases lodged by citizens. Facebook has taken no action regarding these cases, the minister added, while responding to questions from reporters at CeBIT, the world’s largest technology trade show.
“We have to look into the background of the issue. There are 30 closure cases. The social networking site has not applied to a higher court to appeal the decision. They have not followed the rule of law,” Yıldırım said, as quoted by the Anatolia news agency.
Previously, Turkey went on the offensive against Internet giant Google and tightened a ban on the video-sharing site YouTube while cutting public access to a host of Google-owned sites. Yıldırım accused Google of waging a battle against Turkey and of avoiding taxes. But the government faced widespread public anger and attacks from the political opposition for restricting personal freedoms.
Under court order, Turkey’s telecommunications authority banned access to YouTube in May 2008 after users complained of videos that insulted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. Turkey previously expanded the ban to include some Google pages that used the same Internet protocol address as YouTube, to prevent users from circumventing the ban. The search engine giant Google Inc. owns YouTube.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BÜLENT KENEŞ |  |
||
| What befell Niyazi-i Misri in the past is happening to Fethullah Gülen now | |||
| EKREM DUMANLI |  |
||
| When a call for fairness and reason finds acceptance | |||
| ŞAHİN ALPAY |  |
||
| Uludere, test case for democracy in Turkey | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Are the Kurds mentally divorced from Turkey? | |||
| GÖKHAN BACIK |  |
||
| Erdoğan, Gül and Davutoğlu: the inner bargain on Turkish foreign policy | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| Taking lessons from previous experiences with the military | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| Qualm | |||
| ÖMER TAŞPINAR |  |
||
| A new phase in Syria? | |||
| İHSAN DAĞI |  |
||
| Turkish foreign policy: Time for a re-evaluation | |||
| SEYFETTİN GÜRSEL |  |
||
| Poor-friendly economic growth and the AK Party | |||
| CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON |  |
||
| Missing women, missing opportunities | |||
| BERK ÇEKTİR |  |
||
| Changes to incentives for investment in Turkey | |||
| MERVE BÜŞRA ÖZTÜRK |  |
||
| The 1960 coup: a final test for democracy | |||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
