ISTANBUL, Turkey — Turkish Internet users couldn’t care less about porn.
At least that's what a report from The European Council concludes.
Turkish web surfers are most interested in art, news, music, movies, health and literature. Porn falls in the least interesting category along with games, gambling, romance and match-making.
The report was presented to the Turkish Parliament’s Information and Internet Commission by Alternative Informatics Association head Ali Riza Keles.
In a separate presentation, the president of the Development Ministry’s Information and Society Department, Emin Sadk Aydn, maintained that according to his own data and that of the Turkish Statistical Institute, Turkish Internet users only read online newspapers and magazines primarily concerned with career and banking.
But the findings have many critics raising eyebrows simply because access to many Turkish porn and gambling websites is, according to the National Turk, banned by the government’s AKP Justice and Development Party.
In October, 2008 the Turkish Minister of Transport, Binali Yildirim, supported the porn and gambling bans, and any website with political leanings. He said, “Practices are needed to protect young people and the public at large from harmful material online.”
And in May, 2011, new regulations aimed at filtering porn websites backed by the government were scheduled to go into affect this summer, despite protests from critics and business leaders.
The European Council report also noted that Hungarians are porn shy as well, mostly hitting style, game, news and music sites.
The U.K., according to the study, likes to visit fashion, music and online shopping.