Andre Yoskowitz
20 Jan 2008 17:03
According to reports today the extremely popular video sharing site YouTube has been banned in Turkey because of clips that allegedly insult the country's founder.
This situation marks the second time Turkey has banned the site and for the same reason. It is actually illegal to insult the national icon, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Turkish courts have deemed twice that YouTube left clips up that insulted him.
In March 2007, the site was banned for two days in Turkey until offending videos were taken down.
Turkey is not the first country to block YouTube however. Last year the Thai government blocked access to the popular site for 4 months because of clips the government deemed "offensive" towards the Thai monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej. In Morocco, access was blocked in early May after videos were posted that were "critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco took control of in 1975." The Moroccan government never officially spoke of the ban and called it a "technical glitch" that only affected YouTube.