#0 - Feb. 12, 2007, 4:03 p.m.
Like a month or so ago, In a recent concerted move by the ruling conservative party, AKP and the media supporting it, a hype was created to show internet&games as a 'danger' for the children. It was totally unexpected, to the extent that it was like a certain media group who was long time supporter of the ruling party and governmental sources started implementing a long-time plan at the same time upon a sign.
First, with provincial governorial decisions in many cities, 30 game titles ranging from Half life, Counterstrike to Knight Online were banned from being played in Cybercafes around turkey, on grounds that they were pushing children towards violence.
The proof for the violence claim were short official essays which were delivered by a few academicians in various universities locally, without any research or experiments done - prolly on the request of local governors.
Prime minister erdogan have issued harsh statements in the day that was made, said that the cybercafes were 'out of hand' and if they did not 'straighten themselves up', the government would do so harshly and speedily.
Right afterwards, suddenly some big bonanza about 'child porn' came into agenda. Upon information from interpol, first 1-2 people who downloaded child porn were arrested, then a few more in the following weeks. This was made to be a major item on the agenda, in fact the only item, by the biggest media group (Dogan group) who is a long time supporter of this party. Any other item was dropped from headlines, and stuff about child porn, how bad it was, and how widespread it was in turkey was shouted. ( in fact turkey has the lowest bottom places in world child porn usage lists, according to international sources ).
Immediately following these bonanza, it was said that it was important to set up a governing body for internet, and taking measures for protecting the children against 'harmful content'. in addition to a hastily (surprisingly fast, apparently it was on the works) created cyber crime law, ministry of transportation (which curiously holds telecommunication duties also) have started preparing a law that will require that all internet access should be controlled via a central hub by the state, and a 'filtering' system should be in place there for preventing 'harmful' content.
The assasination of hrant dink, the armenian descent turkish journalist was shown to be caused by the internet, based only and totally due to the fact that he said 'i learnt bomb making from internet'. and was used as a further reason to push these laws.
These are about to go into the assembly to be voted this week, probably, or in a few weeks. The main reason for this push is the apparent lack of success for the ruling party in fields of eu relations, terrorism, unemployment, economy, international relations, and budget, and the elections coming up soon. They are seeking to get conservative votes and votes from unwitting parents by this scheme.
Very mild, long-standing web sites containing mild sex content were speedily 'filtered' as being 'harmful to minors', despite they did not accept <18 people.
I wont go into details of how harmful censorship is, and the details of current political situation in turkey.
in relation to wow, recently, another suspicious move appeared;
with the coordination of prime minister's office, there is a new work being done by ministry of tourism for "Classification of games that contain violence and harmful content" - DESPITE the fact that there is NO gaming industry in turkey, and all games are imported from abroad, and all these games come with international ESRB ratings.
A recent meeting was done in Istanbul Intellectual Property and Cinemas Administration. In this meeting, it was also mentioned that the games were spreading the producing nations' cultures, and in addition to violence and being harmful (which is, as you know a very broad, purpose-fittable definition, anything not compliant with sheria can be defined as harmful in conservative circles in turkey), they were affecting the children to raise with non-turkish values and this needed preventing.
http://turk.internet.com/haber/yazigoster.php3?yaziid=17388 (in turkish)
As you remember, games like knight online was banned in cybercafes on grounds that they were 'harmful'.
Which, is not so far in concept from world of warcraft - and even if it was, world of warcraft still falls in the category of 'harmful' and 'violent' in terms of this conservative government's and its sub branches' and supporters' definitions.
With the recent laws to 'set the internet straight', which contain a national 'filtering' system that does not discriminate if you have a child protection software at home or not, whether you are an adult or not, or whether you are using your own private internet access and not in a cybercafe or not, very probably the ban for the 'harmful' games list containing 30 games from counterstrike to ko will be moved to the new central government censorship system and access to these games' servers will be totally barred.
Which brings us to wow.
It is only by luck that wow was not on the list of games banned in cybercafes. But with the recent yell that is being made by people who work for government, people who not only never played games, but most of whom are unable to properly use and operate a computer, it is a matter of time that wow gets noticed and labeled as 'violent' and 'harmful' (wizards and mages, dungeons and dragons and pvp) and prolly integrated into the new 'filtering' system.
You are probably wondering why i am posting this here.
It is because i have nowhere to post this, noone that can help us in turkey. We gamers here, are alone.
Contacting representatives are no avail, because ruling party holds an unnatural majority of the assembly due to irrational election barrage laws that enabled them to take full majority of the assembly with only 35% vote. civil rights organisations in turkey, are almost totally ignorant and unknowledgeable in matters related to computers and internet, leave aside games. government bureucrats are people of ages 50+, who see computers, internet, games and technology like fairy tales in a land far away, and shun them. the biggest media cartel in turkey is ruling party's supporter, and regularly making timed headline news aiding the coming censorship law.
there is no chance for us turkish gamers other than bringing this matter to the international gaming community and sending petitions to european parliament related to this censorship. ( on grounds that citizens of candidate nations have petition rights to eu parliament).
what else should we do ?
