Turkey censors social media…again. This time, that nation blocks You Tube and Twitter because the social media sites refuse to take down a photo of a lawyer being held hostage by militants in Istanbul, Turkey’s capital, largest city and most popular tourist destination.
After many people complained about failure to log on to You Tube and Twitter, a Turkish Internet service provider official confirmed the ban. A total of 166 websites were ordered shut down. All these websites published the controversial photos. It’s not just social media that’s suffering from the ban. Local newspapers and media are taking a hit. Facebook’s ban in Turkey has been lifted. But that’s only because they agreed to comply with this issue. This whole crisis started when a rouge far-left political party took prosecutor Mehmet Kiraz hostage. Kiraz was the prosecutor in an emotionally charged murder trial. Kiraz was kidnapped, attacked, and hours later, died of injuries afflicted in these attacks. Pictures of this ordeal went up all over the nation, electronically and otherwise. Kiraz’s widow and kids began the call to take the pictures down. The case went to an Istanbul court, which ordered the pictures to come down. Turkish medium Daily Hurriyet, who got censored because of the ban, said, “We just want to do journalism. We do not want to face bans…trying to prevent our colleagues from doing their work.”
I must admit, this is a tough call. I sympathize with Attorney Kiraz’s family. It’s traumatizing enough to lose a husband and father in this sudden, tragic and violent fashion. It’s another thing to have this ordeal displayed all over the country. The effect can be devastating. But to ban social media websites because of this is overkill. ?I agree, there needs to be respect for this man’s family and those pictures shouldn’t be posted. But I think of the reaction here. It almost seems like Turkish government leaders and service providers are using this tragedy as an excuse to push censorship. It’s not like they haven’t pushed censorship before. They could have just used disciplinary action against the media companies who posted these pics. Couldn’t the government and media come up with a better solution?