Google Refuses Turkey's Requests to Yank YouTube Videos
Move is Latest Sign of Resistance to a Crackdown Against Social Media led by the Prime Minister
By SAM SCHECHNER and EMRE PEKER
March 21, 2014 5:10 p.m. ET
Google Inc. has declined Turkish government requests to remove YouTube videos alleging government corruption, people familiar with the matter said, the latest sign of resistance to a crackdown against social media led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish authorities have in recent weeks asked Google to block the videos from YouTube's Turkish website, the people familiar with the matter said. But amid a national scandal over corruption allegations, Google refused to comply because it believes the requests to be legally invalid, the people added.
Google's refusal to remove videos raises the specter that Turkey could move to block access to YouTube within the country, after blocking the microblogging service Twitter Inc. late Thursday night. Both sites have been central conduits for allegations of corruption against Mr. Erdogan's government and faced public threats of a blackout by Mr. Erdogan.
Some people within Google had feared a YouTube blackout could be imminent, after the Twitter takedown, the people familiar with the matter said. "We feel an immediate threat," one of the people said.
As of late Friday, YouTube was still online in Turkey.
The videos in question include some with an alleged recording of a conversation in which Mr. Erdogan appears to tell his son to hide money from investigators, one of the people said. Mr. Erdogan has said the recordings, which have been viewed millions of times on YouTube, have been doctored and are part of a foreign plot to topple his government.
Google often fights against what its executives say are unreasonable requests to remove content from the Web. "We support a free and open Internet throughout the world and are concerned whenever and wherever it comes under threat," a Google spokesman said in an emailed statement.
The Twitter blockage led to a wave of condemnation inside and outside Turkey that could complicate further blackouts.
Opposition politicians decried the move as that of a dictatorship. Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who has a largely symbolic role, also came down against the blackout, using Twitter to write that "wholesale shuttering of social media platforms cannot be approved."
It isn't the first time YouTube has run into conflict in Turkey. The site was banned sporadically in the country between 2007 and 2010 because it had declined to remove videos that were said to be insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern republic.
Write to Sam Schechner at
sam.schechner@wsj.com and Emre Peker at
emre.peker@wsj.com
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