No typing mistake

The board of the Telecom authorities has announced that it has closed down 1,112 websites in Turkey since November 2007. No, that’s not a typing mistake: one thousand one hundred and twelve websites have been closed down. These are mostly sites that offer for example pornography or illegal gambling, but sites that (allegedly) support terrorism or separatism are also being closed, and sites that just irritate people or a site like youtube, being closed because of ‘insulting Atatürk’. At first I found it a bit weird that the institution that is technically responsible for closing sites would make this news public. Why bring such a shame on yourself? Of course, it’s not seen as a shame. The board uses the number to illustrate that it is doing its job properly. They take their job of protecting Turks from harmful content seriously. Very seriously indeed.