Turkish ISP Blocks YouTube Over Insult

Turk Telecom, Turkey's biggest fixed-line communications operator, has blocked access to YouTube after a court ruled videos on the service insulted Ataturk.

Throughout the world, it’s generally well-known that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is the founder of the modern republic of Turkey; it’s not so generally well-known that insulting Atatürk is a crime in the modern republic of Turkey.

Tuesday, Turk Telecom, the nations largest fixed-line communications provider, blocked access to Google’s video sharing site YouTube following a court ruling deeming a video available on the service were insulting to Atatürk. According to Turkish media reports, the court ruling came after “hundreds of thousands” of Turks complained about the video, which featured insults written in English appearing over a picture of Atatürk and the Turkish flag.

Reuters is reporting that an Istanbul prosecutor informed them the court had issued a second ruling lifted the ban after YouTube removed the offending video from its service, however, it was not clear when Turk Telecom would lift the overall ban on YouTube.