14
February 2014
Turkey’s
Internet
Censorship
Bill Passes
Through
Parliament
With a show of hands, the legislators late Wednesday endorsed
law 5651 allowing Turkey’s telecommunications authority to
block websites and censor any internet content without a prior
court decision. Bill 5156 only awaits Erdogan’s approval
before being implemented.
The legislation also would force Internet service providers to
keep records on Web users’ activities fortwo years and make
them available to authorities when requested, without notifying
the users.
Internet access in Turkey is already restricted and thousands of
websites blocked. The independent press agency Bianet
estimated that 110,000 websites were blocked in 2011 alone,
while Google reported Turkish requests to remove content
from the web rose nearly 1000% last year.
Proposed amendments to Law No. 5651 would provide for
additional penalties on authors, content providers, and users of
content it deems inappropriate with no effective means of
redress.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been
openly critical of the internet, calling Twitter a “scourge” and
condemning social media as “the worst menace to society”.
Both Twitter and Facebook were widely used by antigovernment &