The Omnibus Bill Will Appoint a Social Media Representative

The government is expected to soon issue a new omnibus bill as part of the fight against the coronavirus outbreak. The omnibus bill, which Sözcü Newspaper gave clues about, also includes regulations regarding social media. According to the text of the Bill of Law on Amendments to Certain Laws, which is expected to be brought to the agenda of the Turkish Grand National Assembly soon, new additions are being made to Law No. 5651 on the Regulation of Publications Made on the Internet and Combating Crimes Committed through Such Publications. The new additions are as follows:

DEFINITION OF SOCIAL NETWORK PROVIDER IS MADE

Social networks that allow people to create, view and share messages such as images, text, audio and location on the internet are defined as \”social network providers\” with the article added to the law on natural or legal persons.

INSPECTIONS CAN BE MADE IN BTK OFFICE

The Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK) will be able to inspect whether social network providers are fulfilling their obligations. In this context, BTK can conduct an investigation at the scene (in the office) or have one conducted. Police forces and other public institution chiefs and officers will also support these inspections.

THERE WILL BE AT LEAST 1 OFFICIAL IN TURKEY

Social networks originating abroad, which are accessed by more than 1 million people from Turkey every day, must determine at least one person in Turkey as an authorized person in order to send notifications, notices or requests to the BTK, judicial and administrative authorities and to respond to applications made by individuals.

The social network provider will keep the contact information of this authorized person on its website in a way that is easily visible and directly accessible. If no authorized person is present, BTK will apply to the criminal court of peace to have the relevant social network provider's internet traffic bandwidth throttled by 59 percent.

If a representative is not determined within 30 days following the decision, the internet traffic bandwidth of the relevant social network provider will be throttled by 95 percent.

PEOPLE WILL ALSO BE ABLE TO REQUEST CONTENT REMOVAL

With the new regulation, individuals will also be able to apply to social media providers for content removal. The relevant social network provider will be obliged to respond to applications made by individuals regarding content within 72 hours.

If the relevant provider does not respond, it will face a fine of between 100 thousand lira and 1 million lira. The relevant social network provider will also be obliged to submit reports containing statistical and categorical information on applications to BTK every three months.

DATA WILL BE HOSTED IN TURKEY

Domestic or foreign-based social network providers that are accessed by more than one million people daily from Turkey will host the data of users in Turkey. Social network providers that do not fulfill this condition will be subject to administrative fines ranging from 1 million Turkish lira to 5 million Turkish lira.

IF CONTENT IS NOT REMOVED THEY WILL BE CHARGED

If content that has been determined to be unlawful by a judge or court decision is sent to a social network provider, the relevant social network provider will compensate for the damages incurred if the content is not removed or access to the content is not blocked within 24 hours. In other words, if the content is not removed, from now on, not only the creator of the content but also the person who facilitated its publication and dissemination will be penalized.

Stage Media

01-01-1970 02:00:00