On Nov. 13, Turkey banned the famous online forum Reddit, under its internet censorship law but was lifted the day after. The reason for the government to ban the said website was unknown; however, speculations around the web said that the Not Safe for Work (NSFW) content, which the site was famous for, was the probable reason.
The Telecom Authority of Turkey (TIB), under this law, banned Reddit under the Internet Law Censorship No. 5651 since 2007; an entity such as TIB is allowed to block a certain website for illegal or unsafe content such as piracy, pornography or terrorism from the Internet without any authorization from the government or legal office.
On a statement released by the TIB, they said that, "After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, ADMINISTRATION MEASURE has been taken for this website (reddit.com) according to Decision Nr. 490.05.01.2015.-252804 dated 13/11/2015 of the Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication." A user confirmed that the site was blocked; however, it was only for a single DNS. Turkish people can still check on the site as long as they use private browsers (VPN) or other DNS that are not located in Turkey such as Google DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
The above mentioned law was also used to block other sites such as Twitter and YouTube and even Facebook as well in the past but have been restored. However, some sites such as Imgur are still banned.
In 2011 Turkey has blocked 3700 websites because of arbitrary and political reasons. In 2014, a group of people from Ankara and Istanbul has protested because of the said Internet law, which led to police interference, resistance and riot.
Currently, the Human Rights Watch is on standby and has criticized the country regarding the records that are bordering freedom of expression. Now, the site is currently up and running again in the country as the ban has been lifted only a day after without any notice why it had been blocked.
