Turkey’s New Social Media Law Stokes Fears of Increased Online Censorship

ISTANBUL, KOMPAS.com – Turkey’s Parliament passed a controversial bill that human rights advocates criticize as an attempt to increase online censorship.

The law, which was passed on Wednesday, would give the Turkish government greater control of social media.

In keeping with the new regulation, social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter must ensure the provision of local representatives in Turkey.

Social media giants must additionally comply with court orders for the removal of selected content or otherwise face a hefty fine.

The legislation targets social networks with more than a million unique visits every day and says servers with Turkish users' data must be stored locally.

If companies refuse to comply, they will face fines and restrictions of bandwidth making the platform unusable.

The bill was submitted by the ruling AKP and its nationalist partner the MHP, which have a majority in Turkey's Parliament, and passed after debates beginning on Tuesday and lasting into Wednesday.

After the night-long debate, the parliament went into summer recess till October.

'Dark era'

Human rights groups and the opposition are worried over what they call the erosion of freedom of expression in Turkey, with thousands of people subject to criminal proceedings for "insulting" President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on social media.

They argue that increased control of social media will also limit Turkish access to independent or critical information in a country where the news media is in the hands of government-friendly businessmen or controlled by the state.

"Why now?" asked Yaman Akdeniz, professor at Istanbul's Bilgi University and also a cyber rights expert.

"While print and broadcast media platforms are already under government control, social media networks are relatively free. Social media has become one of the few spaces for free and effective expression in Turkey," he told AFP.

Human Rights Watch expressed concerns that the law would enable the government to control social media, to get content removed at will and to arbitrarily target individual users.

"Social media is a lifeline for many people who use it to access news, so this law signals a new dark era of online censorship," said Tom Porteous, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch in a statement before the legislation passed.