ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s parliament approved new legislation Wednesday evening that would ban children under 15 from using social media platforms, according to reports from state-controlled media outlets.
The measure represents part of a worldwide movement aimed at shielding young people from harmful online content and activities.
The legislative action follows by one week a tragic incident in Kahramanmaras, located in southern Turkey, where a 14-year-old student fatally shot nine classmates and one teacher at a middle school before dying himself. Authorities are examining the shooter’s internet usage as they work to determine what motivated the deadly attack.
According to the state-operated Anadolu news agency, the new law would mandate that social media companies implement systems to verify users’ ages, offer tools for parental oversight, and establish procedures for quick responses to content flagged as dangerous.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan now has a two-week window to sign the legislation before it becomes official law. Following the Kahramanmaras tragedy, he emphasized the importance of reducing online dangers that threaten children’s wellbeing and personal information.
“We are living in a period where some digital sharing applications are corrupting our children’s minds and social media platforms have, to put it bluntly, become cesspools,” he said in a televised address Monday.
Turkey’s primary opposition group, the Republican People’s Party or CHP, has voiced opposition to the proposal, arguing that young people should be safeguarded “not with bans but with rights-based policies.”
The new regulations would require digital services including YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and similar platforms to prevent minors under 15 from creating accounts while implementing parental supervision features to monitor children’s online activity.
Companies that operate online gaming platforms must also designate representatives within Turkey to guarantee compliance with the updated rules. Violations could result in reduced internet speeds and monetary penalties from Turkey’s telecommunications regulatory body.
Turkey’s leadership has previously limited access to online platforms as they’ve increasingly become venues for political opposition. Internet communications faced widespread restrictions during protests last year supporting Istanbul’s imprisoned opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu.
Australia became the first nation to implement social media age restrictions for those under 16 in December, leading platforms to deactivate approximately 4.7 million accounts belonging to minors.
Indonesia started enforcing similar regulations last month, prohibiting children younger than 16 from accessing digital services that might expose them to explicit content, online harassment, fraudulent schemes and addictive behaviors.
Additional nations including Spain, France and the United Kingdom are either implementing or evaluating similar restrictions on children’s social media access due to increasing concerns about the negative effects of unmoderated online content on young users.
