ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Turkey on Tuesday killed advertising bans on Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest for breaching a controversial new law forcing social media platforms to appoint legal representatives to the country.
The law – which according to human rights and media freedom groups amounts to censorship – requires social media companies with more than a million users to keep representatives in Turkey to deal with complaints about the content of their platforms. .
Companies that refuse to appoint an official representative are subject to fines, followed by advertising bans, and may suffer bandwidth reductions that will make their platforms too slow to use. The ban is selling online ad space, which is what many social media companies get their money from.
Facebook circumvented the advertising ban after announcing on Monday that it had begun the process of assigning a legal entity in Turkey, joining LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Dailymotion and Russian social networking site VKontakte, which have agreed to establish legal entities in Turkey.
“We hope that Twitter and Pinterest, which have not yet announced their representatives, will quickly take the necessary steps,” said Omer Fatih Sayan, the deputy minister in charge of communications and infrastructure, following Twitter’s advertising bans, is an app Live video streaming, Periscope and the image sharing network, Pinterest, were announced in the Official Gazette of Turkey.
Sayan added: “It is our last wish to impose bandwidth reductions for social media that insist on not fulfilling 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 that went into effect in October, the local representative of social media companies would be tasked with responding to individual requests to remove content that violates privacy and personal rights within a period of 48 hours or provide reasons for rejection. The company will be liable for damages if the content is not removed or blocked within 24 hours.
The law also requires social media data to be stored in Turkey, which raises concerns in a country where the government has a history of curbing freedom of expression.
The government insists that legislation is needed to combat cybercrime and protect the rights of Turkish social media users.
Human rights groups have said that the decision by international technology companies to bow to Turkish pressure and appoint representatives would lead to censorship and the violation of the right to privacy and access to information in a country. where independent media are severely restricted. The Association for Freedom of Expression says more than 450,000 domains and 42,000 tweets have been blocked in Turkey since October.
Facebook said Monday it was committed to maintaining free speech and other human rights in Turkey.
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Associated Press writer Kelvin Chan in London contributed.