Turkey Tries to Tighten Internet Restrictions

The ruling AK Party wants more power to block websites and also proxies:

Turkey already has internet filters intended to protect children and made 1,673 requests for Google to remove material from the web in the first six months of last year – more than three times any other country – although most of its requests were turned down.

But some critics have alleged that the legislative initiative is part of a general trend in which the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister, is concentrating more power in the wake of a corruption investigation that has targeted a host of figures connected to the government, including four former ministers and Mr Erdogan’s own son, Bilal.

“These are politically motivated measures to curb the free flow of information on the internet even further in Turkey,” said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Istanbul’s Bilgi University. “Looking at the current political climate, it is primarily for controlling the leaking of videos and WikiLeaks kind of documents.”

Internet crackdowns are sure symptoms of loser regimes.