Oh Turkey, Really?

For those of you planning to do a little live-blogging in Turkey while catching the action in the country's Turkcell Super Lig, forget about posting YouTube highlights. The country has banned access to the video site. Here's the skinny:

For some reason, a Turkish court found it necessary to intervene in a video feud, of sorts, between Turkish and Greek posters on YouTube, by banning access to the site. The Greeks alleged that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, harbored homosexual proclivities. Patriotic Turks retorted that this was untrue, and that in fact the Greek nation itself bore these characteristics. Of course, they didn't use such high-falutin' language. The debate would be pretty familiar to any twelve-year-old, though. Those posting may actually still be in grade school, for all that anyone knows. With the global commons that is emerging online, however, governments prone to meddling with free speech no longer know what to leave on the kiddie table and what to treat as dangerous.

Why YouTube acquiesced to this, I don't know. Either way, at this rate, Turkey should be a member of the European Union any day now.

Thursday Video: Stop calling Ataturk gay, say Turks [Passport]

-ac