Turkey has fined Facebook, along with its Instagram platform, as well as Twitter, Google’s YouTube and China’s TikTok a second time. Turkish lira (TRY) 30mn ($4mn) fines were levied on each for not complying with the country’s new social media law, BloombergHT reported on December 3.

On November 4, Turkey fined the companies TRY10mn as a first-stage punishment after they failed to name a representative in Turkey as required by the law by a November 2 deadline.

On December 3, meanwhile, Netflix, which, along with Amazon Prime Video, in November obtained a Turkey licence by complying with new online broadcasting rules, said that it was planning to open an office in Istanbul.

The number of Netflix subscribers in Turkey has risen to more than 3mn from around 1.5mn in 2019, the company’s CEO Reed Hastings said.

VKontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, has also compiled with Turkey’s new social media law.

Censorship demands

On December 2, the International Press Institute (IPI) said in a statement that the law would require social media companies to comply with government censorship demands on pain of eventually being blocked within the country should they not.

“Meanwhile, in its communique of October 2, the Council of the European Union offered improved economic ties with Turkey without reference to Turkey's human rights record,” the IPI also noted.

The social media law was approved on July 29 and went into effect on October 1.

January could see the imposition of local advertising bans on those who are still not complying with the legislation. Bandwidth throttling is next on a rising scale of punishments. If it proves necessary, the throttling would start in April and May. It would become so severe that any platform facing it would be rendered unusable in Turkey.

Facebook has around 37mn subscribers in Turkey, a country of 83mn. The Facebook personnel that deal with Turkey are based in London. Instagram has 39mn Turkish subscribers.

Twitter has 14mn users in Turkey while the country is among TikTok’s largest markets, providing it with around 30mn subscribers.