![]() ![]() ![]() Social media is one of the last arenas where people have access to independent news and can express themselves with relative freedom after the broad crackdown on media in Turkey. Under the new legislation, anyone who criticizes the government on online platforms can be prosecuted under disinformation charges. It equips the government-controlled Information and Communication Technologies Authority (Bilgi Teknolojileri ve İletişim Kurumu, BTK) charged with regulating the internet, with far-reaching powers to compel social media companies to comply with requests to take down online content and hand over user data or to be subject to reduction of their bandwidth – known as “internet throttling” – if they don’t comply.ĪRTICLE 19, Human Rights Watch, as well as other organizations, have extensively documented the widespread abuse of Turkish Penal Code and Anti-terrorism Law provisions to prosecute and convict journalists and any perceived government critic for critical reporting, statements, or commentary even though they in no way advocate violence. It establishes much tighter government control over online news websites. ![]() It makes “disseminating false information” a criminal offense with prison sentences of between one to three years. The new legislation consists of 40 articles amending several laws, including the Internet Law, the Press Law, and the Turkish Penal Code. “Taken together, the new legislation represents a draconian new chapter ahead of elections in 2023 by increasing the weapons in the government’s arsenal to enforce censorship and tighten control over social media and independent online news sites,” said Sarah Clarke, Head of Europe and Central Asia at ARTICLE 19, “With severe penalties against tech companies for failure to comply with user data and content take-down requests, the law will force tech companies to be complicit with an almost total censorship regime.” The timing of the legislation, months before 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections, also raises concerns that the government intends to muzzle online reporting and commentary critical of the Erdogan government in the run up to the elections. (Istanbul) – Turkey’s parliament passed a swathe of new amendments known as the “censorship law” on October 13, 2022, introducing new abusive criminal speech offences that further deepen online censorship and restrict access to information, ARTICLE 19 and Human Rights Watch said today. Opposition Republican People's Party deputies hold signs in protest of a government-backed bill that criminalizes "disinformation," at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara, October 4, 2022. ![]()
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