I used to think site blocking in Turkey was overblown, until I tried to pull up a news article for my dad

Reese Fisher · 2026-10-07T14:10:04.471637+00:00

For a long time I figured internet bans in other countries were mostly symbolic, since anyone with half a brain can hop over them. Then my father in Ankara asked me to pull up a piece about the 2023 earthquake response on a Turkish news site, and I hit a wall of redirects for ten minutes straight. I had two choices that afternoon: walk him through installing a VPN on his phone over a video call, or give up and just read him my US version of the story. I picked the VPN, and it took 40 minutes, 3 dropped calls, and one very frustrated 71 year old to get it working. He called me the next morning to say two of his neighbors wanted the same setup, which told me the block was doing real damage. It changed how I see these laws, because a ban that only stops your least tech savvy people is still a ban that works on someone. Does anyone here keep a simple written guide for helping older relatives get around blocks like this?

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I used to think site blocking in Turkey was overblown, until I tried to pull up a news article for my dad | Banned Beyond Borders - Discusd