Erdogan Threatens to Block Facebook, YouTube

Local Editor

Turkey's embattled prime minister has warned that his government could ban popular social media networks YouTube and Facebook after a raft of online leaks added momentum to a spiraling corruption scandal.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already tightened his government's grip over the Internet, generating criticism at home and abroad about rights in the EU-hopeful country.

"There are new steps we will take in that sphere after March 30... including a ban on YouTube, Facebook," Erdogan told private ATV television in an interview late Thursday.

Access to thousands of websites have been blocked in recent years in Turkey.
YouTube was unavailable for two years until 2010 because of material deemed insulting to the country's still-revered founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The site still managed to be one of the most visited in Turkey, with users including Erdogan himself resorting to proxy servers to dodge the ban.
"I can get in YouTube, you can too", Erdogan famously said at the time, referring to those servers that provided a backdoor to the site.

Further Internet curbs allowed the authorities to keep a record of someone's web activity for up to two years and block sites deemed insulting or as invading privacy.

Erdogan, Turkey's all-powerful leader since 2003, is openly suspicious of the Internet, branding Twitter a "menace" last year for helping organize mass anti-government protests in which eight people died and thousands were injured.

The Turkish premier dismissed them as a "vile" and an "immoral" montage by rivals ahead of key local elections on March 30.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team