A court in Turkey has ordered the country's top telecom company to block YouTube access from the country because of clips that allegedly insult some of the country's leading political figures.
The ban came after complaints about a video on the site that insults the country's modern founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, along with President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish army. Apparently, it is against the law to insult Ataturk and this is not the first time the country has blocked YouTube for allowing mocking videos of him. Back in March, the site was blocked for two days after it hosted a video showing pictures of Ataturk with insults superimposed in English.
YouTube has previously been blocked by the Thai Government for similar reasons. In that particular case, the ban was lifted after the Thai government reached an agreement where they can object to any posted video that is illegal or offensive to Thai culture. Google officials will then do an independent review and will block the videos from any IP address inside of Thailand - though viewers outside the country will still be able to view the "banned" videos.