Turkish lawmakers are preparing to vote on a bill that would effectively block social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube unless they comply with strict new regulations, Britain’s The Guardian reported.
“The draft legislation would force social media companies with more than 1 million daily users in Turkey to establish a formal presence in the country or assign an in-country representative who would be legally accountable to the Turkish authorities,” the newspaper said.
Companies or their representatives would then be required to respond within 48 hours to complaints about posts that “violate personal and privacy rights” and international companies would be required to store user data inside Turkey.
If they do not comply, Turkish authorities will be able to levy steep fines of up to $1.5 million and throttle sites’ bandwidth by up to 90%, effectively making them unusable, said the report.
The bill would also allow courts to order Turkish news websites to remove content within 24 hours, it added.
According to The Guardian, a vote is as yet unscheduled but is expected to pass with the support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party and coalition partner.
The parliamentary justice committee approved the draft on Friday.
“We aim to put an end to insults, swearing and harassment made through social media,” the ruling party legislator, Ozlem Zengin, said earlier this week, adding that the measures sought to balance freedoms with rights and laws.
