Turkey hits Twitter with ad ban under new media law

Continued failure to comply could jeopardise Twitter's future in Turkey.

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey on Tuesday hit Twitter, Pinterest and Periscope with advertising bans after they failed to follow Facebook and appoint a local envoy to take down contentious posts under a controversial new law.

Freedom of speech defenders view the new regulations as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to control social media and clamp down on dissent.

Continued failure to comply could jeopardise Twitter’s future in Turkey, which the platform lists as one of the top three countries -- along with China and Russia -- requesting the removal of posts.

New rules that went into force in October require networks with more than one million unique daily users to appoint an envoy to handle court orders to remove offending content within 48 hours.

Turkey’s deputy infrastructure minister Omer Fatih Sayan tweeted that companies still advertising on the three non-compliant platforms will be fined.

Ankara is "determined to do whatever is necessary to protect our people’s data, privacy and rights," said Sayan.

"We will never allow digital fascism and rule-breaking to dominate in Turkey," he said.

If the networks continue to ignore the law, Turkey will cut their bandwith by 50 percent in April and then 90 percent by May, thus rendering them effectively inaccessible.

Facebook said Monday it will appoint a local envoy but recognised "how important it is for our platform to be a place where users can exercise their freedom of expression".

It joins YouTube, TikTok and Dailymotion in compliance, drawing anger from activists. Facebook’s Russian equivalent VK opened a local office in November.

Twitter intends to shut down its live streaming app Periscope in March.

- ‘Cyber homeland’ -

Milena Buyum, Amnesty International’s Turkey campaigner, said on Monday that "Facebook’s decision leaves them -- and Google, Youtube and others -- in serious danger of becoming an instrument of state censorship".

Sarah Clarke, who heads the Article 19 media freedom group’s Europe and Central Asia programme, called on the companies "not to contribute to Turkey’s censorship of online content".

She also warned of the risk of exposing users to "arbitrary arrest and prosecution by handing over their private data to Turkish authorities".

Research shows that as Erdogan’s grip on mainstream media tightened, especially since he survived a failed coup in 2016, younger people have sought information online, especially on social media.

Erdothatgan last week warned  the "cyber world... has become a threat to humanity", promising to create a "cyber homeland" as part of Turkey’s defence.

"Those who control data can establish their digital dictatorships by disregarding democracy, the law, rights and freedoms," Erdogan said.

According to the Freedom of Expression Association in Turkey, more than 450,000 domains and over 42,000 tweets have been blocked as of October 2020.

- ‘Murderer’s knife’ -

Despite having one of the largest Twitter followings for a politician, Erdogan is not a social media fan, having once compared them to a "murderer’s knife".

His aversion dates back to anti-government protests in 2013 where social media was frequently used to mobilise people.

But the new legislation gathered momentum after users insulted Erdogan’s daughter Esra and her husband, Berat Albayrak, who was then an unpopular finance minister, after the birth of their fourth child.

Turkey is no stranger to blocking access to websites.

Between 2017 and 2020, Wikipedia was blocked while YouTube suffered a similar fate between 2008 and 2010, and repeatedly over shorter periods in the last decade.