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Turks take to the streets against web filters

How censored do you want your web?

Thousands of people in Turkey took to the streets yesterday to protest government plans for compulsory internet filtering.

All connections in the country will have to choose between four different levels of interference in their internet access.

There were demonstrations in Istanbul and 40 cities around the country. Thousands of people carried banners marked "Yes we ban!" and "We will not bow to censorship".

The Information Technologies Board is proposing people choose a child profile, family profile, domestic or standard profile for their connection. It is also proposing a ban on certain words from internet addresses.

Details on how either scheme will work are sketchy. the Wall Street Journal pressed the ministry for more information and was sent an email containing the rudest twelve Turkish words without further explanation.

Turkey has intermittent and somewhat random internet censorship with about 7,000 websites currently blocked, according to Reporters Without Borders. ®

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