Again Blogger has been cancelled out or temporarily banned in Turkey

Yes, once again all the ex-pats and this time all of the Turks too have had their access to http://www.blogger.com blanked out. My previous post was about the possible success of a democracy in Egypt and I did mention that Turkey would be a good path to follow but when you look at how heavily the internet is censored, for what reason I cannot guess, then you may need to ask yourself, “Does Egypt need to go a few steps further than Turkey with its democracy?”. Even in an apparent democracy, if a country’s government doesn’t like something you write then you are blocked banned or censored in some shape or form.

Censorship happens everywhere even in the democracy of the UK but more localised censoring with possibly a taste of government interference. I remember watching a Clint Eastwood film, can’t remember which one maybe a Dirty Harry film. There was a scene in this Clint Eastwood film where a man was checking a warehouse and he was knocked on his head with a blunt object.  The blunt object nor the knock on the head was seen, just a man walking and then the same man lying on the floor. Now this may seem petty to some but for me it was a wake-up call to how governments and institutions guard people’s minds as if we are 5 year old children with no minds of our own. Censorship can start small and then grow like a cancerous cyst to devour everything in it’s path. In Turkey currently as well as censoring blogs and other sites because of a court order. The television companies (maybe only Digiturk have a remarkable technology of  censoring smoking from all films, series and program deemed to be impressionable which seems to be all. I am aware smoking is bad, I don’t smoke, but why is seeing someone smoking too hard for the Turkish public to handle. Surely they can decide their distaste themselves rather than being guided hand in hand. I say remarkable technology because every time a cigarette is lit up and smoked on any film or series the mystery blur circle comes in to play. Playing a hide and seek game of “You can’t see me but you know what I am doing don’t you?” It seems the smoking blurrer has been modified to be perfect because you never actually see the cigarette. On the other hand the tits and arse blurrer apparently had problems because the blurrer they used to use for censoring occasional possibly pre 9 o’clock nakedness used to quiver slightly so the tits and arse you were not supposed to be seeing you actually saw.

What is this all about cancelling out blogging channels, blurring cigarettes and nakedness, banning freedom of information and thoughts. I am not sure what the world is trying to protect but if it is our dignity give us the right to do this for ourselves. As for the banning of blogger as most countries have seen accomplishes nothing and the only thing that can stop people talking would be to ban living.