We talked to Yaman Akdeniz about the banned websites

Why are some websites banned?

I would tell you why, if I knew the answer! :) All kidding aside, denying access to certain websites or banning certain websites with the help of some software is a method that has been used in the last decade. Such methods were devised to prevent children from accessing harmful content. In other countries, filtering software is used in personal computers at home, in school or in the libraries. However, in Turkey, more than 100.000 websites are banned. Though they say that they did it for protecting children, we know that social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube were banned because of political reasons. However, in the world, hateful and violent contents, gambling platforms, pornography and child porn websites are banned on local scale like in personal computers at home or in school. In Turkey, they do it on a larger scale. 

How many website are banned in the world?

Nobody can know it. But if you visit engelliweb.com, you can have information about the banned websites in Turkey. 

Who bans these website?

In Turkey, courts and Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication (TİB) ban the websites. However, Ministry of Education has a different filtering list for schools and cybercafes has also a different list. In other countries, since they use filtering systems developed by software companies, it is the business of the private sector. Sometimes, the courts in foreign countries also ban some websites because of pirate broadcasting. This is the case in Turkey as well. 

Are hackers the ones who ban websites?

No. You can find the answer above. 

Why cannot we access the banned websites?

This is a technical issue. When a website is banned, its DNS and IP addresses are banned. Thus, when we try to browse that website, we see that it is banned. Of course we can bypass the bans by using technologies like VPN: