[FT] Turkey is seeking to increase control over internet access at a time when the government is also tightening its grip on the country's legal institutions in response to a corruption scandal.| Controlling access to the internet is hard, especially when one's people have access to satellite phones, uncontrolled neighbors, and programming skillz... and they've realized they're mad as hell and don't want to take it any more. (Those of you who are snickering can just stop. Turkey is neither Saudi Arabia nor Afghanistan, you know.) |
The measure, attached to an omnibus bill, increasing its chances of passage, would also require ISPs to restrict access to proxy sites, which can allow users to circumvent censorship.
Turkey already has internet filters intended to protect children and made 1,673 requests for Google
...contributed $814,540 to the 2008 Obama campaign...
to remove material from the web in the first six months of last year -- more than three times any other country -- although most of its requests were turned down.
But some critics have alleged that the legislative initiative is part of a general trend in which the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi only they haven't dumped him yet...
, prime minister, is concentrating more power in the wake of a corruption investigation that has targeted a host of figures connected to the government, including four former ministers and Mr Erdogan's own son, Bilal.