As previously reported on this blog, new Turkish regulations that would strengthen the government's ability to filter the internet have caused a lot of friction in the country and even led to wide-scale protests.
The regulations, which are supposed to go into effect later this summer, have recently been defended by Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister, Bulent Arinc, who said the filtering is designed to keep internet users from accessing pornographic and violent material, as well as sites that might be terror-related. Today, Arinc again defended the filtering program, saying among the sites to be weeded out by the state's filters are some that show you "how to kill your wife."
The regulations -- which would require each internet subscriber in Turkey to sign up for one of four filtering programs -- have recently also led to a war of words between Arinc and Umit Boyner, the head of Turkey's largest association of businessmen and industrialists, with the Deputy PM accusing her of wanting to "liberalize" porn because of her criticism of the filtering plan. More details here.
The Bianet website has an interesting article up about concerns among internet freedom activists over draft legislation in Turkey that would give the already powerful government agency that controls internet-related issues more power to filter the web and block access to sites. According to the article, the draft legislation would compel Turkish internet user to sign up for some kind of state-administered filtering program, although it's not clear right now what will actually be filtered and what the filtering criteria will be. More details here.
Authoritarian Uzbekistan is notorious for its tight grip on the media. But it's probably safe to assume that Tashkent knows what's been going on in northern Africa in recent months. Perhaps this is why the government is patching up a hole in its spotty control over access to information: mobile phone technology that allows users to view blocked Internet sites on cell phones and quickly distribute information via text message.
Russia’s RBC Daily reports that Uzbek regulators have demanded mobile operators notify the government about mass distributions of SMS messages with “suspicious content.” A source at the Uzbek Agency for Communications and Information, which regulates the wireless market, told RBC Daily that mobile operators would also have to switch their Internet networks off whenever authorities wish.
“In addition, operators controlling access to the Internet have been asked to watch activity on social networks and on the Internet in general,” a source at an Uzbek telecom operator told RBC Daily.
That may sound like business as usual. But until now, Internet users surfing the Web through their mobile phone browsers have been able to access otherwise blocked sites unimpeded.
