On the dawning of such a controversial election in Turkey, and the day after they lifted their ban on social media gorilla Twitter, the Turkish government banned YouTube. While the Turkish government has 30 days to comply with the lifted Twitter ban, Twitter isn’t waiting and has already filed a lawsuit in Turkish courts with the claim that the ban was illegal. Immediate speculation is that the same court will overturn the YouTube ban, and a lawsuit will immediately ensue there as well.
While much of the world is outraged that a country could ban such social media icons as Twitter and YouTube, they are hardly the first to do this. Currently there are about a half dozen counties that have a major social media website blocked. For instance, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are all banned in North Korea, China and Iran, while both Eritrea and Pakistan have bans on YouTube and Vietnam keeps Facebook at bay.
How did they do such a thing? Fairly simple actually. Turkish ISPs replaced Google’s DNS and users that accessed the servers found themselves unable to visit the banned sites. While users may have still been accessible via VPN (virtual private network) the circulating Google DNS had become the easiest way to sidestep bans in place. Even before all of this media, and social media, attention being focused on Turkey, their election was considered to be important steps in the battle between the current regime and their secular opponents.
How would you react if suddenly you were banned from these search and social engines? We would love to hear your opinion in the comments below.