The first two bans have been lifted pretty fast after the videos had been removed by Youtube, it is unclear as of now which videos have been the reason for the ban. It would be nice if you could make a screenshot of the notice that you receive when visiting Youtube if you are accessing the Internet from Turkey.

My suggestion would be to try accessing Youtube by IP (http://208.65.153.253/) instead. If that is not working try a working proxy, this should work as always.

source: Futurezone.orf.at (Austrian)

Heise, a respected German computer magazin were the first to report about the ban. The news, which is unfortunately only available in German, does not reveal a source other than that it was reported by the dpa, the German Press Agency.

M&C have more information about the case:

Turkish Internet users attempting to access more than a million WordPress.com sites are now redirected to a site which says in Turkish and English, ‘Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance.’

Kerim Kalkan, a lawyer for Oktar said that the court first ordered Turk Telecom to block a couple of specific sites but the authors of the sites soon moved the allegedly libelous content to other WordPress sites.

‘It was when this happened that we applied to the court to order that all websites of WordPress be blocked,’ Kalkan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

My personal opinion is that this is a typical overreaction showing once again that Turkey is not ready to become a member of the European Union.

Update: Official WordPress.com information released in blog post. Why we are banned in Turkey

source: Heise (German only)
additional information: Monsters and Critics (English)

Can it be that Youtube will now receive many threats of that kind from offended parties ? Could Greeks demand that Turkish nationalistic movies are removed ? Germans that World War II movies, US-Americans that Vietnam, Iraqis that Gulf War, Al-Quaida that 911 movies are removed ? Where is the limit ? May every country and group demand the removal of movies no matter the content, no matter if it is perfectly legal in the United States ?

I think this was a bad decision not only by Youtube who will probably face a lot of demands from now on but also for Turkey who once more have shown that they tend to overreact in such matters. Would not it be possible to either ignore the movie or discuss it openly like it should have been done ? Banning is in my opinion always a sign of fear..

According to the Pro Piracy Lobby website the provider experienced some heavy fire from disgruntled customers and privacy & free speech groups. It seems that the pressure on the provider was this intense that they decided to retract their decision and apologize to their customers.

Together with our new chairman of the board, the management agrees that limiting Internet access is not within the framework of our business, says Fredrik Winbladh, President of Perspektiv Bredband.

It is of great importance the we as a telecom and Internet operator, a so called common carrier, focus on delivering information. We can’t risk our position being questioned given the previous statement. The management and the company learned a lot from the debate that took place and we will use this experience to keep developing according to our vision of becoming the prime broadband choice of the Öresund region (Southern Sweden), says new Chairman Mikael Paulsson.

Two interesting statements. It seems that this episode clearly shows that companies will listen to their customers if only enough raise their voice.

It describes methods to censor websites like blocking url’s via the DNS server that for instance the German government likes to use which can be easily countered by using the IP or an DNS server that does not block the website. So, for every action (censorship) you find the corresponding reaction (bypass). Excellent read for everyone whose country, company or institution has decided to block certain information.

Kinds of censorship described:

• Blocked URL’s via the DNS-server
• Forced proxy server / transparent proxy
• Keyword filter
• Blocked ports
• Software on the client (child protection e.t.c)
• Censorware on the server (inside of networks)
• Whitelist
• IP blocking on the routers

Ways to bypass Censorship:

• Using a different ISP
• Using a not censoring DNS-server
• Using a non censoring proxy server
• Using a Web-2-phone service
• Using a webproxy
• Get Webpages via eMail
• Using steganography
• Using a special proxy like peer-2-peer program
• Special Services

Everything is explained in detail and links are provided where necessary. I have decided to pick out some of the more common methods to censor and bypass information in the coming days – stay tuned.