Toward a new legal framework for online safety, Turkish lawmakers have advanced a set of proposals aimed at curbing minors' access to social media and other digital content. A parliamentary commission report released this week lays out broad measures that include age verification, compulsory content filtering by service providers and expanded takedown powers.
The ruling AK Party is expected to table a draft law addressing these issues in the near term. Family and Social Services Minister Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas told reporters after a cabinet meeting last month that the forthcoming bill would ban social media use for minors and require platforms to build systems capable of filtering content.
Recommendations in the commission report are extensive. They call for the removal of content without prior notice and propose monitoring of video games or toys that incorporate artificial intelligence for potentially harmful content. The report also includes proposals for night-time internet restrictions on devices used by those under 18, mandatory social media filtering up to age 18 and a social media ban until 16.
"We need to protect our kids from moral erosion. We aim to protect our children from all types of addictions, including digital ones," Harun Mertoglu, a senior AKP lawmaker and member of parliament’s human rights enquiry committee, said in response to the report.
Parents interviewed in public areas echoed the concern. Shopkeeper Belma Kececioglu said her 10-year-old spends long hours both on social platforms and playing games. "It is like all the kids are social media addicts. We are already troubled by this and it gets even worse with harmful content," she said, as her son played a game on his phone after school.
The proposals arrive as part of a broader global movement to reassess children's online access. The report notes that Australia in December became the first country to ban social media for children under 16, blocking access to platforms including TikTok, Alphabet’s GOOGL.O YouTube and Meta’s META.O Instagram and Facebook. The report states that Spain is seeking to prohibit social media for those under 16, while Greece and Slovenia are working on similar bans. It adds that France, Britain and Germany are also considering restrictions for minors.
Social media companies have cautioned that outright bans could be undermined by weak age-verification technology and might drive children toward unregulated services. Those warnings are reflected in the report’s account of industry reactions.
Turkey already enforces strict rules on online platforms and has a track record of quick takedowns and access restrictions. A local censorship watchdog, IFOD, reported that at the end of 2024 Turkey had blocked access to 1.2 million web pages and social media posts.
Under current regulations, social media firms are required to process official or user requests within two days, a timetable the report characterizes as leaving limited room for due process. Companies that fail to conform to takedown and other obligations face penalties that may include advertisement bans, bandwidth reductions and fines of up to 3% of global revenues.
The regulatory landscape has already produced platform-specific access blocks in Turkey. The gaming platform Roblox, the communication service Discord and the story-sharing site Wattpad have been banned in the country since 2024. Turkey also imposed a roughly three-year ban on access to Wikipedia in the past.
The parliamentary proposals signal that lawmakers intend to tighten control over digital environments used by children, while industry and civil society questions around enforcement, technology and the potential for migration to unregulated platforms remain prominent in the public debate.