YouTube and Spotify accused of ‘censorship’ after blocking left-wing folk group in Turkey

Grup Yorum call for three-day boycott and give away discography for free following blocks on their content In this picture taken on 30 September 2020 shows logos of social networking websites displayed on a mobile phone’s screen in Istanbul (Ozan Kose/AFP) Published date: 3 June 2025 16:59 BST | Last update: 7 sec ago YouTube and Spotify have been accused of “censorship” after the Turkish government blocked videos and songs by the left-wing folk band Grup Yorum. According to Turkish freedom of expression organisation IFOD, Turkish authorities blocked access to more than 450 videos by Grup Yorum on YouTube last week in the name of “protecting national security and public order”. They said  the 454 clips, shared since 2006 by dozens of YouTube accounts, had totalled more than 205 million views. IFOD said  in a statement on Friday that at least one of the group’s albums had also been blocked on Spotify and Apple Music. A similar request was put to streaming site Deezer, but they refused to comply. Legislation passed in 2022 handed the government’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) powers to compel social media companies to comply with requests to take down content and hand over user data or to be subject
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