PARIS: A court in Turkey on Wednesday ordered blockage of all access to YouTube, the popular video-sharing Web site, over a video deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
The ban followed a week of what the media in Turkey dubbed a “virtual war” of videos between Greeks and Turks on YouTube and came as governments around the world — including France — grappled with the freewheeling content now readily posted on the Internet.
The largest Internet provider in Turkey, Turk Telecom, immediately complied with the ban and cut off access to the site.
“We are not in the position of saying that what YouTube did was an insult, that it was right or wrong,” Paul Doany, the chairman of Turk Telecom, told the state-run Anatolia news agency. “A court decision was proposed to us, and we are doing what that court decision says.”
Visitors to the site in Turkey on Wednesday afternoon were greeted with the message first in Turkish and then in English: “Access to www.youtube.com site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court.”
