In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was
notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity on YouTube in
Turkey, and that the press was reporting that the Turkish government was
blocking access to YouTube for virtually all Turkish Internet users
the video that sparked the controversy was a parody news broadcast
After having many of the videos translated into English, Wong and her colleagues
set out to determine which ones were, in fact, illegal in Turkey; which violated
YouTube’s terms of service prohibiting hate speech but allowing political
speech; and which constituted expression that Google and YouTube would try to
protect
a Turkish prosecutor made a sweeping demand: that Google block access to the
offending videos throughout the world
Google refused, arguing that one nation’s government shouldn’t be able to set
the limits of speech for Internet users worldwide
Turkish government today continues to block access
clipped from: www.nytimes.com 
