By John Oates for The
Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
Turk Telecom took the action on orders from a court. The telco
said it would lift the ban, with the approval of the court, if the
offending video was removed. YouTube has seen a violent slanging
match between Greeks and Turks with dozens of response videos
posted.
Paul Doany, head of Turk Telecom, said: "We are not in the
position of saying that what YouTube did was an insult, that it was
right or wrong. A court decision was proposed to us, and we are
doing what that court decision says."
The original video was posted by a user called Stavraetos.
Greeks and Turks, and the odd Armenian, used the video sharing site
to chuck insults at each other. The mainstream Turkish media took
up the row.
Insulting Ataturk is a criminal offence in Turkey punishable by
prison.
In another blow for the brave new world of user-generated
content, France is banning anyone except reporters from videoing
violent acts. The legislation, proposed by Nicholas Sarkozy, aims
to stop incidents of happy slapping by imposing big fines on anyone
filming such attacks.
But the law is so widely drafted that several
bloggers and Reporters Sans Frontieres have pointed out it
could be used to stop genuine reporting.
Macworld
noted that the law came exactly 16 years after an amateur
videographer filmed the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles
police officers. Under the new law French police should be
protected from such an invasion of privacy.
© The Register
2007
