I chose her blog because it was well written and had an interesting topic (freedom of speech in Turkey) that related to my previous entry as well.
The title, 138 Forbidden Words, is catchy and gives the reader the topic without actually giving anything away. I noticed immediately, however that there were only words (no pics, gifs, etc.), which was a little daunting. The entry explains that the Turkish government banned a list of 138 words from use in internet domain names. She also mentioned that she wasn't surprised that a country in the Middle East would face these sort of problems with restrictions on freedom of speech. However, I was a little shocked in that this is the first instance in which I've ever heard of a country banning words from internet domain names- I've heard of content limitation, government monitoring chat forums, and other such internet restrictions, but not this.
After reading the articles that the author attached to her blog, I noticed that I had a different interpretation than she did.
She is correct in that the first article, linked here, does not provide much explanation for the choice of words that were suddenly banned from internet domains in Turkey. However, the second one seems much more clear in its message. The main target of this policy seems to be to limit internet access to websites that have pornographic images. That is why seemingly common words such as "get," 31, and the common name Haydar are included in the list. The past tense of "get" is "got," which means butt in Turkish, 31 is Turkish slang for masturbation, and Haydar is slang for penis. There are a host of other seemingly innocent words, such as "sister-in-law," which have been included because of some vague connection to what could maaaybbbeee be a search for pornography.
However, the mundane quality of these words is what makes the law so complicated, confusing, and absurd.
All the sudden, someone is banned from content of a website about their favorite Manchester United star, player Fellaini, because he's player 31.
That's about as crazy as Miley
However, I don't think she reached the end of the road in terms of conclusions. The blog doesn't mention anything about the fact that this list of banned words were chosen for their associations (no matter how loose) to porn websites.
Furthermore, I would have liked to see her go into a little bit more detail about the ambiguity about whether or not host companies in Turkey had to legally comply with this policy, and how they would struggle to even do so since the process would be so messy and confusing.