YouTube Blocked and Reblocked in Turkey + Some Users Get More Than 15 Minutes of Fame

In an effort to combine two seemingly noteworthy bullet points into one small anecdote of news on your RSS feed, YouTube is in the news this week. Did you know that in Turkey you couldn't get on YouTube since 2008? That is until this week, when a Turkish court removed the two-year block on the site. However, shortly after the ruling and lifting of the ban, YouTube was blocked yet again in Turkey and users were seeing a blank screen along with some text informing them of the block that was part of the original May 2008 court ruling.

The reason? Apparently the Turkish republic founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, found four videos on the site very offensive and demanded them to be removed. The only issue here is that those videos were taken down two years ago. The Turkish userbase apparently caused enough ruckus that YouTube was unblocked again not soon after the reban. We've tried to contact the Turkish Telecommunications Transmission Directorate and Google for comment, but have been unsuccessful in receiving a response. We do know that the two parties will be meeting sometime soon to discuss the matter.

In other YouTubian news, Google has decided who gets to wear a gold star in the community. Starting this week, "selected users" will be allowed to go beyond the constraints of that pesky, yet newly-set time limit of 15 minutes for videos. Google has said, "as long as it's your original content, it's fair game regardless of length." That's what she said?