YouTube ban lifted - will it last?
 |
Just over 2 years since the ban was brought in, YouTube is finally accessible again in Turkey... for the moment at least. Originally, the Turkish government introduced the ban after videos were published which were deemed to be insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. |
The ban also had knock-on effects for several other Google owned services.
Google (who own YouTube), refused to remove the 'offending' videos - instead choosing to leave the videos accessible to viewers elsewhere in the world, and block the offending videos from being seen by viewers within Turkey. This wasn't good enough for the Turkish government - hence the blanket ban.
However the videos were removed last week due to copyright infringement complaints - i.e. the original poster did not have permissions to use the material contained in the video. Hence the Turkish government lifted the ban on YouTube.com.
So what's the twist? Well the offending videos have (in the last couple of days), been identified as being exempt from copyright claims under US law, and therefore the offending videos have been re-instated with the same conditions as before (i.e. they can be seen by anyone in the world, but not by viewers in Turkey).
It's therefore expected that as nothing has changed (the videos can be seen outside of Turkey), the ban will be reintroduced. Turkish authorities are currently holding off until they receive official confirmation on the videos status from YouTube.
Currently access to YouTube and all Google services has now been fully restored. Interestingly over 7,500 websites are blocked in Turkey, source: engelliweb.com.
If the ban does return, or if you would like to speed up your internet access, don't forget to check out our step-by-step guide HERE, which includes a YouTube work-around.