Turkey bans Reddit under internet censorship law

Government officials in Turkey have blocked Reddit website under the internet censorship law 5651. The law facilitates banning of any site that contains pirated material, is pornographic in nature or contains criticism of its president Mustafa Ataturk.

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Turkey has previously banned other popular websites or internet service in the past. The Turkish government had previously blocked YouTube for some time in April this year. Turkey also banned URL shortening website bit.ly for a brief period. On clicking the pages of banned website, internet users are redirected to a page giving information that the particular website is banned by the authorities.

Internet users are able to surpass the banned pages and still visit some of the website by changing their internet settings. However, there is no announcement on when the ban will be lifted. There is no explicit reason given by the officials other than stating that the website was banned to comply with the Internet censorship law 5651. The Government decision to ban some websites has come with a lot of criticism on the internet.

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An official site confirming the ban now reads, "After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, administration measure has been taken for this website (reddit.com) according to Decision Nr. 490.05.01.2015.-252804 dated 13/11/2015 of the Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication."