Turkey restricts social media advertising

Publication date: 28 January 2021

Turkey bans ads on social media over new law

The Turkish Information and Communication Technologies Authority has imposed advertising bans on Twitter, Periscope, and Pinterest after they failed to appoint local representatives in the country. In July 2020, the Turkish parliament passed a new social media law. The law requires social media platforms with more than 1 million daily users to appoint a local representative in Turkey, who has to be a Turkish citizen. It is necessary to allow local authorities to quickly remove any offensive and defamatory content. In case of non-compliance, platforms will face a hefty fine of 1 mln Turkish lira ($135K) and data restrictions. The law also requires platforms to store user data inside Turkey. The new social media law came into force at the end of 2020, and Turkey has already fined Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest 30 mln lira ($4M) each. According to experts, a failure to comply with the requirements can end in a block on 90% of the platform’s internet traffic bandwidth. Facebook and Youtube have decided to abide by the law and appoint their representatives in Turkey.

• It is worth noting: Facebook has reported its full year 2020 results. The company’s revenue amounted to $85.96 bln, including a 21% year-on-year rise in ad sales to $84.17 bln. The net profit soared 58% to $29.15 bln.