Who Stands in the Way of Enforcing Access-Blocking Orders: The HTTPS Protocol or Content Providers?

10 September 2018Murat Volkan DülgerCommentary

Introduction

This work was written in Turkish. The summary on this page is a translation; the citation gives the original title in parentheses.

“Whoever does not stand on lawful ground has no right to accuse another of unlawfulness.” Although the internet is an unlimited source of information and medium of expression, it is not a lawless environment. The legal rules that apply outside the digital world apply equally to this field, to the extent that they suit its nature. The fact that the enforcement of court decisions meets certain obstacles and difficulties arising from the nature of the internet does not mean that law does not exist in this environment. At a time when even the legal status of AI entities is a matter of debate, law will without exception exist in every environment where intelligent beings, whether biological or artificial, are present and live together.

To this end, numerous legal provisions have been enacted and court decisions delivered in Türkiye and in foreign legal systems, and as a result a discipline of “IT Law” has emerged. Although technological innovations bring certain difficulties in the application of the law, these are resolved over time, and IT Law too is in search of solutions to them. By contrast, the greatest problem in the application of the law is seen to stem from the human factor. Unless civilised and cultured individuals who respect the law and one another and are capable of empathy, and a society made up of such individuals, are brought into being, the law cannot be applied as it should be or without resort to punitive methods.