YouTube Remains Blocked in Turkey, Despite Court Order

YouTube remains and will remain blocked in Turkey for the time being, even though a court ordered the government to unblock the video-sharing website on Wednesday

The Turkish telecom regulator, the Information and Communications Technologies Authority (BTK), announced on Thursday that it will not lift the ban until "criminal content" is removed from YouTube, according to various news reports. The BTK is ignoring the court order, so the timeline for lifting the ban remains unclear.

"The measure blocking access to the youtube.com Internet site remains in place," BTK said in a statement on its website, according to Hurriyet Daily News. "Some content in 15 links was removed, but YouTube blocked some other content only for Turkish users while leaving it open to other countries. Since March 27, a total of 151 links have been located on the website broadcasting the same criminal content." Read more...