The state agency that monitors radio and TV has fined digital streaming platforms including Netflix and Amazon Prime for allegedly promoting homosexuality and undermining Turkish ‘moral values’.
Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council, RTUK, which monitors and sanctions radio and television broadcasts, fined various big digital streaming platforms on Wednesday for productions addressing LGBT issues and “normalising obscenity”.
“Not recognizing the boundaries of gender, sexuality and relationships, constructing an alternative ideal world based on gender, changing the universal family form, showing scenes of intense obscenity in detail, and normalizing all these and even defining them as ‘healthy’ were considered contrary to the principle of protecting the family,” RTUK said in its decision to fine Netflix over its series called “Anne”.
Other digital platforms fined by the RTUK are Amazon Prime, Disney+, MUBI, BluTV and Radio Virgin, again for productions promoting LGBT stories. RTUK has not yet specified the amount of the fines.
In the case of Disney+’s series “Love, Victor,” an administrative fine at the upper limit was applied due to the presence of “disturbing and morally objectionable behaviours” in one of its episodes.
The production “Modern Love,” aired on Amazon Prime, also received an administrative fine at the upper limit for containing scenes contrary to “the moral values of society and the principle of protecting the family”.
In August 2019, RTUK was given authority to oversee digital streaming platforms with a regulation change that increased government control. Following this, several fines were imposed on digital platforms in parallel with the government’s increased pressure and censorship of media and the internet.
RTUK plans an extraordinary meeting with the representative of digital streaming platforms in September. At the meeting, “the values of the Turkish family, national and moral values and the indivisible integrity of Turkey” will be explained to the platforms, RTUK announced.