ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey on Wednesday passed a new social media law that critics say will create a “chilling effect” on dissident voices that have used Twitter and online platforms as the government strengthens its control over the mainstream media.
The law subsidized President Tayyip Erdogan and his nationalist allies through the AK party to make foreign social networking sites more accountable. He asks them to appoint a local representative to address the authorities’ considerations.
The law would allow the Turkish government to remove content from platforms and block access as it has in the past.
Companies, in addition to Facebook and YouTube, that do not comply can see their bandwidth reduced by up to 90%, necessarily blocking and exposing themselves to other sanctions.
They will also have to buy data from local users in Turkey, raising fears that a state that critics say has more authority under Erdogan will be able to access it without problems.
It is estimated that 90% of Turkey’s main media outlets are state-owned or government-owned.
The Turks already have extensive surveillance on social media and new regulations, especially if user knowledge is vulnerable, will have a “deterrent effect,” said Yaman Akdeniz, cyber rights expert and professor at Istanbul Bilgi University.
“This will lead to identifying dissidents, locating who the parodic narratives are, and judging more people. Or other people will prevent the use of those platforms when they realize it,” he said. “People in Turkey are already afraid to talk.”
Erdogan criticized social media and said they are accumulating “immoral acts” online due to lack of regulation. Your AK Party says the law will not lead to censorship and is intended to protect non-public rights and data.
Ozgur Ozel, a member of parliament of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the law is an “act of revenge.”
“Possibly it could silence us and our opponents, but it cannot silence young people,” he told Parliament before the law was passed around 7 a.m. after a night debate.
Turkey took the moment in the world on Twitter-related court orders in the first six months of 2019, according to the company, and had the number of other legal requests from Twitter.
Akdeniz said that social media corporations comply with all requests from authorities, adding access to user knowledge and removal of content that they lately do not accept.
Representatives of Alphabet’s Twitter, Facebook and YouTube did not have to wait without delay to comment on the law.
Editing by Robert Birsel, Jonathan Spicer and Alison Williams
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