Turkey’s broadcasting regulator, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), has fined five major streaming platforms, including Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video, for allegedly violating laws on obscenity and “public morality,” citing content it said undermined family values, Turkish Minute reported.
RTÜK imposed a fine of 3 percent of their advertising revenue last month and ordered the removal of specific titles from the catalogs of Netflix, Prime Video, Disney XD, MUBI and HBO Max.
The penalties targeted the films “Cobalt Blue” on Netflix, “Those About to Die” on Prime Video, “Benedetta” on MUBI, “All of Us Strangers” on Disney XD and “Looking: The Movie” on HBO Max.
RTÜK said in a statement on Thursday that the movies promoted homosexuality, contained sexually explicit material or glorified violence, which it deemed contrary to “national and moral values” and the principle of protecting the family.
The watchdog said it would continue to align digital and television content with family values and protect children from harmful material in line with the “Year of the Family” announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier this year to promote family values and boost the country’s declining birth rate.
RTÜK member Tuncay Keser, from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), criticized the sanctions as a double standard. He said on X that daytime talk shows often feature sensational content undermining families, yet the government punishes subscription-only streaming platforms where adults access content voluntarily.
“This claim of protecting society is a serious contradiction and double standard,” he said.
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Turkey has long imposed strict content regulations on broadcasters and online platforms, often attracting criticism from rights groups and opposition parties, who accuse the government of using morality laws to censor artistic expression and LGBTQ+ visibility.
The penalties come amid growing concerns over RTÜK’s independence, with critics accusing the council of acting as a tool to silence dissenting voices and enforce a pro-government media narrative.
Over the past months, pro-opposition news channels in Turkey have frequently faced restrictions on their broadcasting through sanctions imposed by RTÜK, whose board members are appointed in proportion to the number of seats held by political parties in parliament, meaning that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) currently dominates the agency.
RTÜK handed down 46 sanctions in the first half of 2025 alone, 42 of them on critical outlets, with fines totaling nearly 100 million lira (about 2 million euros), according to Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR).
In July 2024 the watchdog again imposed administrative sanctions on Netflix, MUBI and BluTV for hosting content deemed immoral.
RTÜK enforces administrative sanctions under Article 32 of Law No. 6112, including warnings, program suspensions and fines. Depending on the severity, temporary broadcast suspensions and license cancellations can also be applied.
Turkey, which has been suffering from a poor record of freedom of the press for years, ranks 159th among 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
