Anonymous to Turkish Government over Censorship: “Expect Us”

The online activist group Anonymous has issued a threat to the Turkish government in response to a new filtering directive set forth by Information and Communication Technologies Authority, also known as BTK. The directive, which would go into effect on August 22, would require Internet users to sign up for one of four filtering options: children, family, domestic, or standard.

On June 6th, Anonymous uploaded a video to YouTube citing Turkey’s prior censorship activities and calling the government’s filtering of the Internet “inexcusable.” The video closes with an ominous warning:

“We do not forgive.”
“We do not forget.”
“Turkish government, expect us.”

Anonymous has been credited with various forms of online activism, recently gaining attention last December for attacks on Visa and MasterCard sites in response to the companies’ cooperation against WikiLeaks, which caused both sites to shut down on December 8th.

The BTK claims that the directive is intended to protect users from inappropriate material and that the standard option would contain no filter. However, the directive has been met with widespread opposition and protests within Turkey as well as calls for reconsideration of the directive from the European Commission and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE. The directive also comes on the heels of a controversial proposal to ban 138 words such as “gay” (in English and Turkish) and “yasak” (forbidden).