Turkey has again imposed fines, this time TL 30 million ($3.8 million) each, on social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for failing to comply with a new social media law that tightens control over social media by requiring platforms to name a representative in Turkey, according to a government official who spoke to Bloomberg, Turkish Minute reported.
The second round of fines was imposed since the companies have not appointed representatives within the required period of time.
Social media companies Instagram, Periscope and TikTok have also been levied an identical fine.
The companies were slapped with a fine of TL 10 million ($1.17 million) on Nov. 4 for the same reason.
Only one Russian social media company, VKontakte (VK), has appointed a local representative to Turkey so far.
The new social media law, which went into effect on Oct. 1, is feared to be used to silence dissent in Turkey, where there are widespread concerns about freedom of expression, as the law requires social media companies to respond within 48 hours to requests to remove content, a broad power that allows authorities to block access to anything they might consider illegal.
If the social media companies continue to refuse to appoint local representatives to Turkey, private businesses and individuals in Turkey will be prohibited in January from giving ads to these companies.
In addition, the Turkish Telecommunications Authority (BTK) will be able to go to court and demand a reduction of 50 percent of the social media companies’ Internet bandwidth, making the platforms too slow to use if the companies do not observe the requirements of the new social media law for another three months after the enforcement of the advertising ban. The companies may face as much as a 90 percent cut in their Internet bandwidth.
If the companies appoint a local representative to Turkey in a month and decide to pay the fine, they will be granted a 25 percent reduction in the fine.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its opposition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party, pressed for the new law, arguing that it would end insult and harassment of individuals through the use of social media.
The new law also requires the companies to store data from users on local servers.
Those measures are feared to give the government more leverage against critics in a country that already monitors social media closely and has previously blocked access to websites, including Twitter.
The prosecution of individuals due to their social media messages is an everyday occurrence in Turkey. Thousands of people are tried or face legal action on insult charges due to their critical views on social media about President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and government officials.
Turkey was in the first half of 2019 at the top of the list of countries demanding the removal of content from Twitter, with more than 6,000 requests.
[…] now no other companies have decided to appoint a representative in Turkey despite getting fined for not doing […]