New regulation obliging social media platforms to hand over users’ personal information if the authorities ask for it – adopted just ahead of critical elections, has been condemned by the opposition Good Party leader.
Good Party leader Meral Aksener has accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government of increasing government control and censorship ahead of vital May 14 elections with a new regulation of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK.
“Only 39 days left to the elections and the BTK has put a new social media regulation into force. According to this, social media platforms will have to deliver personal information to the authorities without any court decision. Finding an excuse for an investigation will be enough,” Aksener said in parliament.
Aksener said the personal information of people who have not been proved guilty by courts may be demanded for such vaguely defined reasons as “spreading disinformation”, crimes against “state secrets, integrity of the state” and crimes against “constitutional order”.
The new regulation of the BTK was published in the Official Gazette on Saturday.
It is based on the recent contorversial disinformation law adopted by parliament in October 2021 but brings even more restrictions.
According to the new regulation, social media platforms will have to store users’ data in Turkey and will must share it with the authorities if they ask for it.
“If social networks act against their information-sharing responsibility, their bandwidth will be reduced by 90 per cent,” the new regulation says.
“In other words, the ENAG [an independent platform evaluating the inflation rate] may be silenced for spreading misleading information. Moreover, not only the ENAG, but also accounts that share the ENAG figures will be silenced,” Aksener said.
Aksener added another possible example about the recent earthquake disaster; the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been criticised for its slow and ineffective response to it.
“People who say that there were no search-and-rescue missions for four days will be silenced for acting against the integrity of the state,” she claimed..
The new regulation has worried rights groups and experts, fearing more censorship ahead of highly critical parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14 that pose a major challenge to Erdogan’s 21 years of rule.
“The so-called disinformation law in Turkey … came into full effect a few days ago and has already been worsened by the recent regulation announced by the BTK,” said Gurkan Ozturan, coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response, MFRR, at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.
“The new directive, which again is written with ambiguous wording that can cause arbitrary implementation, proposes heavy violations of users’ rights to anonymity, privacy and it imposes duties to monitor people’s online activities at all times for service providers,” he added.
According to Ozturan, the regulation targets citizens’ right to access information as well as “media freedom, making it compulsory to amplify news published from the perspective of the government”.
“Ahead of elections in May, this directive poses a crucial threat to media freedom and such coervice and over the line applications should be abolished.” Ozturan concluded.
Erdoigan’s government has regularly changed regulations and laws to increase its control over social media networks in recent years.
In February, it blocked most access to Twitter, Tiktok and slowed down the internet in the country as public anger mounted about the government’s response to the quake crisis.