Turkish officials blocked YouTube Thursday following the alleged leak of covertly recorded security meeting footage.
The Hurriyet Daily News reports Turkey's telecommunications regulator exercised new authority to block access to the video site without a court order.
Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the act of leaking the recordings on YouTube as "immorality, dishonorableness and vileness." (Via C-SPAN)
But the international community was just as quick to criticize the censorship. On Twitter, the E.U.'s digital commissioner called the block "another desperate and depressing move." (Via Twitter / @NeelieKroesEU)
The news comes less than a week after authorities in Turkey attempted, with varying degrees of success, to block Twitter access in the country.
Twitter has appealed to get the ban lifted, residents took to spray-painting unblocked DNS addresses around Istanbul, and even Turkish President Abdullah Gul isn't happy with it. (Via Twitter / @gulayozkan)
"In a tweet on the social media network, he said only individual Internet pages should be blocked if someone's privacy has been violated. Erdogan's move has been widely attacked at home and abroad." (Via Euronews)
Wednesday a court in Ankara ordered the Twitter ban be reversed, but The New York Times reports it could be weeks before access is restored.
In the meantime, Hurriyet reports, Erdogan has indicated Facebook might be next on the ban list.
