The Turkish government officials have blocked Reddit under its internet censorship law The Turkish government officials have blocked Reddit under its internet censorship law

Turkey’s government has blocked Reddit under its Internet censorship law 5651. Under this law, the country’s officials are allowed to ban sites that contain content that is pirated, is pornographic in nature or contains criticism of the current President Mustafa Ataturk.

This is not the first time that Turkey has banned a popular website or Internet service. Turkey’s government officials had blocked YouTube for a brief period in April this year. Popular URL shortening service bitly was also blocked during this period. Users were redirected to a page stating in Turkish “this internet site (bit.ly) is placed under administrative measures by the Telecommunication Authority.”

While users can avoid this blockage by switching their DNS settings, there is no word on when the ban will be lifted. No explicit reason has been given for the ban on Reddit, but given the site’s heated discussion forums and its various threads which have NFSW content, the ban should not come as surprise in light of Turkey’s censorship laws.

The official site shows Reddit has been taken down under administrative measure The official site shows Reddit has been taken down under administrative measure

An official site confirming the ban now reads, “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.

The Turkish government has faced protests and criticism for its crackdown on the Internet freedom.

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