By Caitie McCoy
On Wednesday, July 29, Turkish lawmakers passed legislation that allows government control over social media content.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party dominate the majority of Turkey’s conventional media outlets. As a result, millions of Turks rely on digital outlets for information and free public debate. The passage of this bill, however, grants Erdogan the power to restrict social media access.
The law requires platforms with over one million daily users (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) to open offices in Turkey. In these offices, representatives must store domestic user data, as well as remove or block “offensive” content from their websites upon government request. Failure to comply within 48 hours can result in bandwidth restrictions, advertising bans, and fines of $700,000 or more. Penalties such as slowing a website’s bandwidth--the maximum amount of data transmitted over an internet connection in a given amount of time--can largely inhibit social media accessibility.
Restrictions were extreme even before the bill’s conception. President Erdogan made a vow to limit access to digital platforms in 2014, when he received backlash on the internet for his involvement in a corruption scandal. In recent years, the government has charged citizens for critiquing the president online, banned Wikipedia (repealed in 2020), and taken control of streaming services. In 2019 alone, Turkey blocked access to over 400,000 websites and removed a sum of 56,000 posts from Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
Based on this history of censorship, critics believe the new law will give authorities an even greater ability to obstruct the flow of outside information into the country and suppress free speech.
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