Turkish court overturns YouTube ban

Ankara court ordered a Turkish government ban on YouTube to be lifted, but allowed the blockage of 15 specific videos to remain in place. The move comes after a similar overturning of a government ban of Twitter. The court in the capital Ankara said the YouTube ban was too broad and instead specifically blocked access to 15 videos, a copy of the court document showed, as Reuters reports.

After blocking YouTube completely, a Turkish court today ruled that a “blanket ban” violates human rights. In place of the ban, the court ruled to block 15 specific videos. Today’s decision comes more than a week after Google’s video site was first blocked. Twitter, another service the Turkish government blocked ahead of local elections, was banned for over two weeks. Now that elections have passed, it’s likely the government will lift the YouTube ban soon. Twitter’s ban lifted days after elections kept Turkey’s ruling party in power. Nearly one month ago, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that he “will not leave this nation at the mercy of YouTube and Facebook.” We feared a Facebook ban would arrive next, but today’s ruling may de-escalate the situation.