 In December 2010 my blog, Perking the Pansies, was blocked by the Turkish internet police. I threw a hissy fit at the prospect of a firm hand on my door knob, a frisk by a frisky conscript and instant deportation. It all turned out to be a storm in a çay cup. Tens of thousands of Google blogs were instantly blacked out because they all shared the same IP address with a couple of Turkish websites that were infringing copyright law (laughable when you think that Turkey is flooded with counterfeit goods). As a result, my inconsequential ramblings were simply caught up in lazy censorship that uses a scatter gun approach to punish the innocent and the guilty alike. My blog became, as the Americans say, ‘collateral damage‘. I had to shut up shop at Google and move lock, stock and barrel to new premises at Word Press.
Well, bugger me. It’s happened again. This time the idiotic censors have targeted this website. I'd like to make some PR capital out of this by claiming anti-gay discrimination but, alas, I can’t. The circumstances are exactly the same as before. This time it seems porn and gambling sites are being a targeted. I found one site sharing my IP address called Jail Bait which sounds like it a particularly nasty little corner of the web. Ban illegal sites by all means but it can’t be beyond the wit of these petty bureaucrats to deal with offenders individually instead of just pulling the plug on thousands of innocent sites just because it’s easier. I’m working with my domain host to move my website to another IP address. In the meantime, the only way for people in Turkey to visit this website is via a VPN or proxy server. |