News and developments
The Law Amending the (“Amendment Law”) Law number 5651 (“Law Number 5651”) on Regulation of Broadcasts via Internet and Prevention of Crimes Committed through Such Broadcasts was published in the Official Gazette on 31 July, 2020. With the Amendment Law, important changes were made to the internet law. It is possible to examine the changes brought under two main headings: changes in social media regulations and changes in the general process.
REGULATIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
With the Amendment Law, the definition of “social network provider” was introduced for the first time. The social network provider is defined as ” real persons or legal entities that enable users to create, share or view content, information or data such as text, images, sound, location via Internet, for the purpose of social interaction.” The definition of social network providers has been roughly drafted and the scope will become clearer with further regulations and implementation. With the Amendment Law, foreign social network providers with more than one million daily accesses from Turkey are obliged to comply with the following requirements. Obligations for the social networks will come into force as of 1 October 2020.Obligation to Appoint a Representative
Foreign social network providers obliged to appoint at least one representative in Turkey and entitled to notify the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (“Authority“), who will be authorized to receive notifications, notices and requests from public authorities and/or private individuals, and to comply with and respond to such notifications, notices and requests. In case the representative is a real person, this person must be a Turkish citizen. Social network providers also provide the representatives contact information on their websites in an easily visible and accessible manner. Social network providers who do not fulfill their obligations to appoint a representative and inform the Authority, a five-tiered sanction system will be implemented;- The social network provider who do not fulfill their obligations to appoint a representative and inform the Authority, will be notified by the Authority initially. If they fail to fulfill the obligation within 30 days as of the receipt of the notice, the Authority may apply administrative monetary fine of 10 million Turkish Liras.
- In case the obligation of the administrative fine is still not fulfilled within 30 days as of the notification date, a monetary fine of 30 million Turkish Liras will be imposed.
- In case the obligation is still not fulfilled within 30 days as of the second monetary fine, Authority will prohibit the resident tax-payers to give advertisements to the social network providers. In this regard, providers will be prohibited to execute new contracts and money transfers.
- In case the obligation is still not fulfilled within three months as of the advertisement ban decision, Authority may apply to criminal justice of piece for throttling of the internet traffic bandwidth of social network provider by 50%.
- In case this obligation is still not fulfilled within 30 days as of the execution of the first bandwidth throttling decision, the Authority may apply to the criminal justice of the peace to request the Internet traffic bandwidth to be narrowed down by 90%.