Turkey denies plans to leave World Wide Web for 'alla turca' Internet

ANKARA

Turkish authorities have denied that they are considering abandoning the World Wide Web to establish their own web alla turca with a "ttt" protocol instead of the conventional “www” amid the government's efforts to rein in global websites, including Twitter and YouTube.

The Communications Ministry has denied in a statement that Minister Lütfi Elvan had ever suggested such a groundbreaking formula during an informal meeting with journalists in Parliament on April 19, as Hürriyet had reported.

According to the statement, Elvan noted the European Union’s efforts to establish a structure with various stakeholders, adding that these issues would be discussed during an international summit in Brazil to be held on April 23 and 24.

Earlier, daily Hürriyet had reported that Elvan argued countries could establish their own domains.  

"Instead of www, a ttt system could be formed. Turkey and other countries could establish their own domains. Such a move would detach the Internet systems from each other. This is a controversial issue," Elvan was quoted as saying by daily Hürriyet.

The reported suggestion drew an immediate response from Member of European Parliament Andrew Duff, who Tweeted, “The man [Elvan] is clearly an idiot.”

Elvan also assured that Turkey was not the only country that was in favor of a new system, according to the report. "The only source address of social media is U.S.-based companies. That's why EU countries led by Germany and France also have problems with it. These countries are in talks with the U.S. Social media should have a joint international text of rules like the United Nations Charter. Otherwise, countries may form their own Internet domains to have more security," Elvan said.

The comments sparked debates as experts underlined that no country, including China with its powerful censorship tool the "Great Firewall,” has left or plans to leave the main backbone of the Internet, which may lead to the establishment of “national intranets.”

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that coordinates the Internet's global domain name system, did not reply to Hürriyet Daily News' query seeking comment on April 19.

On April 17, Elvan had announced another novelty by saying that “malicious content” on Twitter would be pixelated by Turkey’s telecommunications authority following a meeting with representatives of the micro-blogging website.

“We have reached a consensus to ‘neutralize’ malicious content that is the object of court decisions by pixelating,” Elvan had said in a written statement on April 17.