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4/8/14

Turkey - Democracy: YouTube strikes back at Turkey with one of the world's scariest weapons -- by Kia Kokalitcheva

Turkey has been making a lot of headlines lately for its prime minister’s negative feelings toward social media. And social media is striking back.

YouTube has just filed a complaint to the Turkish Constitutional Court against the current ban and Gönenç Gürkaynak is representing the company, according to a report from Hürriyet Daily News.

Gürkaynak represented Twitter during the company’s talks with the Turkish government following its ban.
On March 27, Turkey’s Telecommunications Authority (TIB) banned the video-sharing service without a court order after recordings of an important security meeting regarding Syria were leaked through YouTube.

The ban was no surprise, as Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, threatened to ban the service as early as March 7, proclaiming, “We will not leave this nation at the mercy of YouTube and Facebook.”

One week prior to YouTube’s ban, the prime minister shut off access to Twitter. Twitter’s ban was subsequently declared unconstitutional and a violation of Article 26′s freedom of speech protection by Turkey’s Constitutional Court. YouTube is likely seeking a ban lift on similar grounds.

Gürkaynak has also filed a lawsuit to the Ankara 4th Administrative Court, demanding a stay of execution and cancellation of the ban, according to Hürriyet.

He is also appealing a local court’s decision to re-instate the ban after it was lifted on April 5. The local court had claimed the ban would have to stay in place until YouTube removes the “criminal content.”

The video-sharing giant has been blocked in Turkey in the past, even as early as 2007. Along with the recent ban on Twitter, Turkey has also temporarily blocked Facebook in 2013.

Read more: YouTube strikes back at Turkey with one of the world's scariest weapons -- lawyers | VentureBeat | Business | by Kia Kokalitcheva

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