ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Turkey on Tuesday slammed advertising bans on Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest over their non-compliance with a controversial new law requiring social media platforms to appoint legal representatives in the country.
The law – which according to human rights and media freedom groups amounts to censorship – forces social media companies with more than one million users to hold representatives in Turkey to handle complaints about content on their platforms.
Companies that refuse to appoint an official representative are subject to fines, followed by bans on advertising, and they can reduce bandwidth, which will cause their platforms to use too slowly. The ban is on selling online advertising space, and that’s where many social media companies make their money.
Facebook avoided the advertising ban after announcing on Monday that it had started awarding a legal entity in Turkey, joining LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Dailymotion and the Russian social media site VKontakte, which had agreed to include legal entities in Turkey. Turkey to set up.
“We hope Twitter and Pinterest, which have not yet announced their representatives, will take the necessary steps quickly,” said Omer Fatih Sayan, the deputy minister in charge of communications and infrastructure, after the advertising ban for Twitter. a live video streaming app, Periscope, and on the image-sharing network, Pinterest, has been announced in Turkey’s Official Gazette.
Sayan added: “It is our last wish to introduce bandwidth reductions for social networks that insist on not meeting their obligations.”
Twitter said in an email to The Associated Press that it had no comment on Turkey’s move. There was no immediate response from Pinterest.
Under the law, which went into effect in October, the local representative of social media companies would have the task of responding to individual requests to take away content that violates privacy and personal rights within 48 hours or to reject grounds for rejection. to provide. The company will be held liable for damages if the content is not removed or blocked within 24 hours.
The law also requires the preservation of social media data in Turkey, which raises concerns in a country where the government has a record of freedom of speech.
The government insists that the legislation is necessary to combat cybercrime and protect the rights of Turkish users of social media.
Rights groups have said that the decision by international technology companies to bow to Turkish pressure and appoint representatives would lead to censorship and violation of the right to privacy and access to information in a country where independent media are severely curtailed. . According to the Freedom of Expression Association, more than 450,000 domains and 42,000 tweets have been blocked in Turkey since October.
Facebook said Monday it remains committed to upholding free expression and other human rights in Turkey.
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Associated Press writer Kelvin Chan in London contributed.