A draft bill in the Turkish parliament would ban children under 15 from using social media, force platforms to act on some takedown or access blocking orders within one hour and extend new oversight to online games by requiring age ratings and blocking unrated titles from distribution, Deutsche Welle’s Turkish edition reported on Thursday.
The bill would amend Law No. 5651, Turkey’s main internet law used for content removals and access blocks, by adding a rule that social network providers cannot offer service to children who have not turned 15 and must take steps such as age verification to enforce it.
For users who are 15 and older, the draft would require platforms to provide a separate, child specific service and build parental control tools that let parents manage account settings, require parental approval for paid actions such as subscriptions and track and limit time spent on the platform.
The text would also expand regulation to cover digital games distributed, played or updated online. It would add legal definitions for “game provider” and “game distributor” and create a new section requiring games to be rated by age criteria. Distributors would be barred from offering games that are not rated properly and would have to remove unrated content, according to reporting on the draft.
Under the draft, game distributors based abroad with high daily access from Turkey would have to appoint a representative in Turkey, notify the Information and Communication Technologies Authority and make the representative information public.
The telecoms regulator, known as the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, would gain broader authority to demand information from social network providers and game distributors, including details about corporate structure, algorithms and data processing systems. Companies would have five days to provide the requested information, according to the reporting.
The bill would also require social network providers and game distributors to carry out risk assessments and submit them to the regulator. It would allow the regulator to order measures for services deemed risky, including partial or full suspension or changes to how a service is offered, according to reporting on the text.
On enforcement, the draft sets out financial penalties for game distributors that fail to meet obligations, with fines ranging from 1 million to 30 million Turkish lira ($23,000 to $690,811). If violations continue, bandwidth would be cut first by 50 percent and then by as much as 90 percent, the reporting said. If a distributor later complies, only one-quarter of the fine would be collected and the bandwidth restriction would end.
The proposed one-hour rule would apply to takedown and access blocking orders issued in urgent cases described as situations where delay would pose a risk. Reporting on the draft says those cases include threats tied to the right to life, the safety of people and property, national security, public order and preventing crime or protecting public health.
For social network providers with more than 10 million daily accesses from Turkey, the bill would require compliance “immediately” and no later than one hour, according to the reporting. It would also require platforms to take steps, including automated systems and artificial intelligence tools, to prevent the same blocked content from being reposted.