According to The Wall Street Journal, Turkey has blocked YouTube in response to a sex scandal video concerning former leader of the republic's main opposition Republican People's Party, Deniz Baykal. The video contains Mr. Baykal dressing with his lover in a hotel room and forced him to resign when it was posted on the Internet earlier this year. Turkish authorities and "volunteers" succeeded in removing the videos from YouTube.com, but on Monday YouTube said it would reinstate the videos. The company hoped that Turket would still allow YouTube to stay open, but this did not happen. Google is the owner of YouTube.com. It seems that by not allowing the Turkish government to force them to remove the videos, Google was taking a stance in order to ensure that other governments would not try to make the same move. Turkey has blocked as many as 5,000 websites since new laws took effect in 2007.
The relationship between Google, an American company, and Turkey shows the trouble of international business. In America, these videos are clearly not viewed as immoral or blatantly detrimental, but this is obviously not the case in Turkey. It is important to recognize that Google has refused to give in to the Turkish governments wishes even though they are losing customers in Turkey.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703506904575592552552213616.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews
ReplyDeleteThis decision to reinstate the videos and not give in the wishes of the Turkish government is certainly a smart and strategic move on the part of Google executives. While possibly losing some of their viewer base in Turkey, Google has increased the view of YouTube in terms of CSR in the eyes of nearly all Westerns who fight for the right to free speech. The majority of YouTube's viewer base is from the Western world, so this is both an ethical and a profitable move. It clearly demonstrates that Google knows the target market for YouTube and makes decisions with those market values in mind.
ReplyDelete