Abstract:

Youtube.com was banned in Turkey by several court orders as of 2008. Currently Turkish Telecommunications Board blocks all access on the internet to the youtube site. Yet Turkish citizens found several innovative digital ways to bypass this ban. At the same time several citizens’ rights groups were formed that question the legal, ethical and political aspects of the ban. On the legal side, citizen rights groups appeal this ban on the national and the international level thus fighting for freedom of expression of citizens in a democratic polity at an international level. On the ethical side, Turkish citizens willfully and knowingly bypass this ban and exercise their right for freedom of expression without feeling the guilt and remorse of an illegal activity thus displaying a quality required for establishment of an autonomous public sphere and civil society that fills this sphere. Politically, this counter reaction to government censorship policies is a result of EU freedom of speech process initiated by citizens rather than state elites. This paper firt give a general analysis of the situation and offers the perspectives of both government officials and online interviews of different Turkish online citizen activities groups. Then to test whether there is civil society response to the ban which both parties claim to be test the density and frequency of this response.