The Law on the Amendment to the Press Law and Certain Laws Is Published
The Law on the Amendment to the Press Law and Certain Laws (Law) is published in the Official Gazette dated 18.10.2022 and numbered 31987.
The Law amended a number of laws, most notably Press Law numbered 5187 (Press Law), Law on the Regulation of Internet Publications and Combating Crimes Committed through these Publications numbered 5651 (Internet Law) and Turkish Penal Code numbered 5237 (Turkish Penal Code).
Main amendments introduced by the Law are summarized below:
Amendments to the Press Law
- In addition to printed works, news websites are also included under scope of the Press Law. Accordingly, several existing obligations and sanctions regulated under the Press Law are now also applicable to online news websites.
- For the fulfillment of the obligations imposed by the Law, a period of three months from the effective date is stipulated for the already operating news websites.
Amendments to the Internet Law
- It is designated that if there is sufficient suspicion that a content constitutes the crimes specified in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 27 of the Law numbered 2937 on the State Intelligence Services and the National Intelligence Organization, content may be removed or access may be blocked.
- The obligation of social network providers to appoint a representative is expanded and became more elaborate. Accordingly, the real person representative shall be a Turkish citizen as well as a resident of Turkey.
- Additional powers and responsibilities are stipulated for the representatives of foreign social network providers with more than 10 million daily accesses from Turkey. A period of six months is granted for representatives to comply with the new regulations.
- The social network providers are now obliged to provide judicial authorities with the information necessary to reach the perpetrators who create and disseminate internet content subject to certain crimes regulated under the Turkish Penal Code. In case of violation of this obligation, the bandwidth may be reduced by 90%.
- The Law imposed an obligation on the social network providers to establish an effective application mechanism in cooperation with the Information and Communication Technologies Authority to remove title tags and featured content through warning.
- The Law further introduced a number of additional obligations on the social network providers, including the obligation to take necessary measures to provide differentiated services specific to children.
- The sanctions provided by the Law for violations of its obligations range from advertising bans and bandwidth throttling to administrative fines of up to 3% of the social network providers’ global turnover the previous calendar year.
Amendments Made to the Turkish Penal Code
- A new article is added to the Turkish Penal Code to regulate the crime of publicly disseminating misleading information. The penalty for this offense is imprisonment from one to three years.
The Law entered into force on the date of its publication, except for a number of provisions which will enter into force on 01.04.2023, and are not discussed above.
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