Official YOUTUBE is finally back baby!

Well, it is been a long time since I last wrote but I thought this definitely deserved a mention. The mere fact that the youtube service was banned from Turkey from a slur on Atatürk by some Greek nationals is very bad. What was also very bad was a complete shutdown of many websites, some for no apparent reason at all, that all seemed to occur straight after the Turkey and Atatürk slurring incidents. Youtube is not the demon, the people who wrote the comments from both sides of the fence were the real demons for using the internet to start a war of words between two countries that share many of the same ideals and culture and yet still there is anger over the islands of Cyprus and other deep seated problems that should be lost in the past. It is about time all parties concerned tried to put their differences to rest, I know this may be hard with the animosity that still exists but you have to try because anarchy is not the chosen route to peace. In the UK we had serious problems with Northern Ireland, they completely hated the English and probably with reason but we sorted our differences to a stage where we could at least talk and in Northern Ireland probably as in Cyprus the feelings of hatred and mistrust are everywhere.

For me this squabble over differences has been just one big pain in the ass as it has been for other foreigners and Türks too. The trying to access all sorts of normal internet sites and being refused by the ominous notice from the state that appeared to everyone who visited the sites that were banned. A rethink is needed because everyone who needed or wanted to access any of the banned sites didn't have a problem in doing so even after the ban. They just used other means that may have not made the experience easy to view the sites that were banned but still gave them the opportunity to gain information or view the videos they wanted. Youtube is invaluable to anyone who wants to learn something new and is of special value to teachers in finding videos of cartoon characters for the kids and other educational material.

The internet doesn't corrupt people, people are already available to corrupt. The ones that can be corrupted will be corrupted and the ones that are true of heart will remain true of heart no matter what they view on youtube. Let's just hope it stays around because it is a great tool for all and almost all blogs, news sites and many other informational sites use their services to advertise themselves, inform and educate. Obviously there are a few that want to corrupt too but they are few and for this ban to have taken hold over just a few is a travesty of justice for all Türks and all people who live in Turkey. The Internet started as a free medium to converse and pass information and should remain this way for the people, if people need to restrict anything then it should be left to responsible adults to restrict sites with their own filters.