At present, the Telecommunications Authority Regulation of 2007 introduces state
monitoring over access and hosting providers and their activities. Article 15-c of the
regulation stipulates that access providers that cease their operations are obliged to
submit all records of traffic logs pertaining to their last year of operation, as well as
their user IDs, to the Telecommunications Authority.
ONI Testing Results
Turkey has one main commercial backbone connection, owned and controlled by Turk
Telecom and the educational network, UlakNet. Most of the filtering of international
traffic takes place on the Turk Telecom network, which links to other commercial ISPs
within the country. Testing by the OpenNet Initiative shows that the academic
network does not currently engage in filtering. UlakNet primarily provides Internet
access to academic centers and some government institutions, including the military.
The ONI testing found a number of sites blocked on Turk Telecom in a variety of
categories. Sites containing information on Turkish Kurds, including www.pajk-online
.com, hpg-online.com, and the official Web site of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or
PKK were blocked. Interestingly, two sites belonging to well-known Muslim creationist
Adnan Oktar (adnanoktar.wordpress.com and yahyaharun.com) were blocked, as was
19.org, the site of Oktar’s rival Edip Yuksel. According to some reports, Oktar is responsible for the bans on Yuksel’s sites and Wordpress, as well as the 2008 blocking of evolutionist Richard Dawkins’ site in Turkey. 41 Other blocked sites included P2P sites such
as the Pirate Bay (thepiratebay.org) and myp2p.eu. Gambling sites were also blocked.
Since the Internet Law came into effect, the number of blocked sites has drastically
increased. The most high-profile filtering has been of the popular video-sharing site
YouTube.com. YouTube access has been blocked a number of times in 2007 and 2008,
in response to complaints about specific videos, most of which were considered to
‘‘insult Turkishness.’’ Access has been restored following the takedown of each video.
Wordpress and all blogs on the Wordpress domain, as well as popular blogging platform Blogspot, have been blocked and unblocked a number of times as well.
Conclusion
Turkey has implemented a series of reforms in its telecommunications and Internet
sectors, showing its firm determination to stay on the membership path to the European Union. Nonetheless, further reforms are needed to terminate the de facto monopoly of the main telecoms and Internet service provider Turk Telecom. All Internet
traffic passes through Turk Telecom’s infrastructure, thereby allowing centralized control over online content and facilitating the implementation of shutdown decisions.
Unless the government rethinks its current Internet policy and abandons blocking
Turkey
353
monitoring over access and hosting providers and their activities. Article 15-c of the
regulation stipulates that access providers that cease their operations are obliged to
submit all records of traffic logs pertaining to their last year of operation, as well as
their user IDs, to the Telecommunications Authority.
ONI Testing Results
Turkey has one main commercial backbone connection, owned and controlled by Turk
Telecom and the educational network, UlakNet. Most of the filtering of international
traffic takes place on the Turk Telecom network, which links to other commercial ISPs
within the country. Testing by the OpenNet Initiative shows that the academic
network does not currently engage in filtering. UlakNet primarily provides Internet
access to academic centers and some government institutions, including the military.
The ONI testing found a number of sites blocked on Turk Telecom in a variety of
categories. Sites containing information on Turkish Kurds, including www.pajk-online
.com, hpg-online.com, and the official Web site of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or
PKK were blocked. Interestingly, two sites belonging to well-known Muslim creationist
Adnan Oktar (adnanoktar.wordpress.com and yahyaharun.com) were blocked, as was
19.org, the site of Oktar’s rival Edip Yuksel. According to some reports, Oktar is responsible for the bans on Yuksel’s sites and Wordpress, as well as the 2008 blocking of evolutionist Richard Dawkins’ site in Turkey. 41 Other blocked sites included P2P sites such
as the Pirate Bay (thepiratebay.org) and myp2p.eu. Gambling sites were also blocked.
Since the Internet Law came into effect, the number of blocked sites has drastically
increased. The most high-profile filtering has been of the popular video-sharing site
YouTube.com. YouTube access has been blocked a number of times in 2007 and 2008,
in response to complaints about specific videos, most of which were considered to
‘‘insult Turkishness.’’ Access has been restored following the takedown of each video.
Wordpress and all blogs on the Wordpress domain, as well as popular blogging platform Blogspot, have been blocked and unblocked a number of times as well.
Conclusion
Turkey has implemented a series of reforms in its telecommunications and Internet
sectors, showing its firm determination to stay on the membership path to the European Union. Nonetheless, further reforms are needed to terminate the de facto monopoly of the main telecoms and Internet service provider Turk Telecom. All Internet
traffic passes through Turk Telecom’s infrastructure, thereby allowing centralized control over online content and facilitating the implementation of shutdown decisions.
Unless the government rethinks its current Internet policy and abandons blocking
Turkey
353