Turkey has upraised its ban on YouTube service after two years. The ban was implemented because of some videos deemed insulting to the country’s founder.
Popular video sharing website YouTube was banned in Turkey back in May 2008. The ban was a result of some videos insulting Turkey founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk were being hosted on YouTube. In Turkey, insulting the country’s founder or institutions is considered as a crime.
Transport Minister Binali Yildirim who is in charge of Internet issues, confirmed that the videos has been removed which resulted them to lift the ban.
“The ban has been removed,” Yildirim said on Turkish TV news channel NTV. “But we didn’t get here easily, we have been through a lot in the process. I hope that they have also learned from this experience and the same thing will not happen again. YouTube will hopefully carry out its organization in Turkey within the limits of law in the future.”
“We’ve received reports that some users in Turkey are once again able to access YouTube…We want to be clear that a third party, not YouTube, have apparently removed some of the videos that have caused the blocking of YouTube in Turkey using our automated copyright complaint process,” YouTube said in a statement. “We are investigating whether this action is valid in accordance with our copyright policy.”
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