That time I found out Wikipedia is actually banned in Turkey

I was working on a group project for my online history class last semester and one of my teammates was from Istanbul. She kept saying she couldn't access certain articles for our research. I figured she was just struggling with internet searches or something. Then she sent me a screenshot of the Wikipedia block page that comes up when you try to visit from Turkey. It's been blocked there since 2017 over some content disputes. I looked into it more and apparently they lifted the ban briefly in 2020 but then put it back. It made me realize how easy it is for me to take free access to info for granted. Has anyone else run into a situation where a basic website like Wikipedia was totally unavailable to someone you know?

2 comments

2 Comments

loganburns23d ago

Yeah true. It's wild how different the internet actually is from place to place.

the_fiona23d ago

Noticed this kind of thing more and more. Like how certain social media sites are blocked in China or how some countries block news sites during elections. It's not just Wikipedia. There's this quiet assumption that the whole internet is the same for everyone, but governments are always picking and choosing what their people can see. Makes you realize how much we rely on what feels like normal open access.