How Facebook risks becoming the long arm of Turkey's censorship regime - Turkey Abroad

Turkey’s newly updated law regulating social media achieved its biggest victory last week when Facebook announced it was beginning the process of appointing a representative to handle in-country complaints. <br /><br />The law, known as Internet Law No. 5651, was amended in late July 2020 by the Turkish parliament. In its revised version, the law required that social media companies with a million or more users in Turkey had to appoint a representative to the country. In the months since the revision was approved, companies including Youtube, VKontakte, TikTok and LinkedIn all announced they would comply with the regulation. <br /><br />Facebook is the largest firm to declare its intent to comply, prompting an outcry from advocacy groups who saw it as a dangerous contribution to a growing censorship regime in Turkey. Sarah Clarke, the head of U.K based advocacy group Article 19 for Europe and Central Asia, saw the news as a foreboding development for user rights and privacy in the country.<br /><br />“What we’ve seen is Facebook along with Youtube and a number of social media platforms go against their own commitments to freedom of expression and in effect become an instrument of state censorship,” Clarke told Ahval in a podcast.