Turkey has begun hosting a major UN-backed forum on Internet governance, despite sharp criticism that it is one of worlds leading offenders on limiting Internet rights. The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is an annual meeting set up by the United Nations that aims to bring together government, activists and business to discuss how to regulate and encourage use of the Internet worldwide. He said the forum strived to help government officials and civil society to better access the benefits of the Internet for all. Yet the choice of Istanbul as the venue for the meeting has been highly contentious, given Turkeys own patchy record on Internet freedoms which included brief bans on YouTube and Twitter this year.