TurkeyLaw on Regulation of Internet Publications, Social Network Providers' Duty to Children
Law No. 5651, Ek Madde 4, as amended by Law No. 7418 ()
In force since .
A social media and minors rule binding private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Binds a social network provider, meaning a person that enables users to create, view or share content such as text, images, sound or location for social interaction (Article 2(1)(s)). Paragraphs 1, 3, 4 and 6 of Additional Article 4 apply from more than one million daily accesses from Turkey; the paragraph 7 duties below state no such threshold.
- Do not provide the service to a child who has not completed fifteen years of age, and take the necessary measures, including age verification, to prevent that (paragraph 7, as replaced by Law No. 7578, in force since ).
- Take the measures necessary to offer a service specifically differentiated for children who have completed fifteen years, and publish the measures taken under paragraph 7 on your own website (paragraph 7).
- Provide clear, understandable and easy-to-use parental control tools that let a parent control the account settings, make purchases, rentals and paid memberships subject to the parent's permission or approval, and monitor and limit usage time (paragraph 20, in force since ).
- Take measures that block deceptive advertisements (paragraph 21).
- If you have more than ten million daily accesses from Turkey, carry out decisions given in urgent cases under Article 8/A immediately and within one hour at the latest (paragraph 22).
- If you have more than ten million daily accesses from Turkey, take every necessary measure so that content subject to a removal or blocking decision under the Law is not published on your own website (paragraph 23).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
If you get it wrong
Penalty structure
Ek Madde 4(24), numbered (20) before Law No. 7578 moved it: a social network provider that fails the paragraph 7 duty (along with the duties of paragraphs 6, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 23 of the same article) may be fined up to 3% of its global turnover in the preceding calendar year, by decision of the head of the enforcing authority.
- Rule
- Turnover pct only
- As of
- Currency
- TRY
- Turnover percentage cap
- 3
What it reaches
Covered services
A social network provider, whether based in Turkey or abroad: a person that enables users to create, view or share content such as text, images, sound or location for social interaction. Paragraphs 1, 3, 4 and 6 of Additional Article 4 apply from more than one million daily accesses from Turkey, paragraphs 22 and 23 from more than ten million, and paragraph 7 states no access threshold.
Obligation class
Age verification, Prohibition, Design code
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Paragraph 7 requires measures including age verification and publication of the measures taken on the provider's own website; it names no log or record of a check and no retention period. Other paragraphs of Additional Article 4 (4, 5, 16 and 18: six-monthly reports, information for prosecutors, sharing with police, information requests) sit outside the paragraph 7 duty.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Additional Article 4 of the Law on Regulation of Internet Publications sets duties for a social network provider, which Article 2 defines as a person that enables users to create, view or share content such as text, images, sound or location for social interaction. Paragraphs 1, 3, 4 and 6 of Additional Article 4 apply from more than one million daily accesses from Turkey (paragraph 1 only to a provider based abroad), and paragraph 7 states no access threshold.
Since , paragraph 7, as replaced by Article 22 of Law No. 7578 (), bars a social network provider from providing its service to a child who has not completed fifteen years of age and requires it to take the necessary measures, including age verification, to prevent that.
The provider must also take the measures necessary to offer a service differentiated for children who have completed fifteen years, and the measures taken under paragraph 7 are published on its own website. Before that date, paragraph 7, added by Law No. 7418 (), required only that the provider take the measures necessary to offer a service specifically differentiated for children.
Article 22 also adds new paragraphs after paragraph 19, the first of which requires the provider to offer clear, understandable and easy-to-use parental control tools, and moves the fine provision, formerly paragraph 20, to paragraph 24.
The other new paragraphs require measures against deceptive advertisements and, for a provider with more than ten million daily accesses from Turkey, carrying out urgent blocking decisions within one hour and keeping content that is subject to a removal or blocking decision off its own website.
That provision makes a provider that fails the paragraph 7 duty, along with several other duties in the same article, liable to an administrative fine of up to three percent of its global turnover in the preceding calendar year, imposed by the head of the enforcing authority.
Article 22 extends the fine to the duties of new paragraphs 20, 21 and 23, and provides that a duty still unfulfilled thirty days after a fine is served leads to a ban on new advertising to the provider by taxpayers resident in Turkey and then to a court application to reduce the provider's bandwidth.
The authority responsible for enforcing this Law was renamed the Cybersecurity Presidency (Siber Güvenlik Başkanlığı), succeeding the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), by Law No. 7590 ().
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform.
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