This year (for the first time in a long time), I am spending several months over the summer in Istanbul, Turkey. I plan on being here till early August so, for the first time in a long time, I actually have some time to enjoy the city and catch up with friends with whom I haven’t met in ages. Having decided to stay here this long, it also meant that I had to bring work with me… except that 20% of my research was and still on YouTube and the Turkish courts had banned YouTube on May 5, 2008 because of “crimes committed against Ataturk,” the founder of the Turkish Republic. The story is this: Greek and Turkish YouTube users had been trading video insults prior to the ban, attracting much coverage in the Turkish press. Greek videos reportedly accused the founding president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, of homosexuality and a Turkish user responded by calling Greece the birthplace of homosexuality. Wow, very mature of both nations. Their behavior is not unlike the griefer communities that I have been researching in Second Life, you know, the ones who plaster penises, swastikas, and communist symbolism in virtual environments and calling each other fags and various racial slurs. As a result of this silly controversy, the Turkish court has banned YouTube and the world went *wild* arguing that the ban was the result of the conservative politics of the current government in power. True, the Turkish government is currently in the hands of the religious conservative right (so was United States under the Bush government over the past eight years) and there are a lot of people who don’t like it (as there were under Bush). An important thing to remember is that the Turkish government has not banned the site for showing sex or child pornography (which is not permitted to upload on YouTube anyway), or for videos against Islam. It banned it for insults against Ataturk who was actually the reformist president who had put the religious right in its place and made the country a secular power. And since then, he is treated as the God above Gods.  We can argue whether this is appropriate or not till the cows go moo, but this is how it is. Top-level government officials themselves declared within recent days that they are indeed AGAINST the ban, Abdullah Gul (the president), Tayyip Erdogan (vice president), Binali Yildirim, and Tayfun Acerer are all against the ban and are willing to find some legal route to get the site. But as Google recently (and unexpectedly) bundled several of its services (such as Google docs, Google Earth) in the same IP address as that of YouTube, now access to these other services are also impossible. Unlike what some Western media outlet think (or would like to think because it is sensational), the Turkish government has nothing to do with this recent ban mess. So… clearly there is something else going on here for which Google is also responsible.

When this IP-bundle mess hit the fan, the Turkish government looked for the appropriate Google representatives to find a solution to make these various other services available. Ironically, all they could find was a small office that was in charge of advertisements and that Google had no official presence within Turkey. In other words, they weren’t able to find any Google representative to negotiate. The scam is simple: Earning advertising dollars in Turkey without having an office allows the search giant to *evade* taxes. And it is also conveniently *not* bound by the laws and regulations of the government. As a result, the Turkish government has mandated Google to pay $30.000 in penalty for the untaxed income it has generated.  As they should. So while some people are upset at the government for these bans, others are upset at the media giants who don’t treat them as *worthy* customers. Meanwhile, people have reported a considerable slowing down of Google’s services speed-wise. Not sure why this may be the case.

Google representatives are finally coming to Turkey this week to solve this crisis, but the people who make up Google’s $100.000 market share are a bit ticked off (me included). Telecommunications director, Tayfun Acarer, has promised a resolution.

For the love of god, please solve this soon, so I can continue doing my research, like now!