Turkey will begin enforcing a social media ban for children under 15 on Nov 1, potentially requiring all users, including adults with anonymous accounts, to verify their age through the official e-Government (e-Devlet) portal.
Under regulations published in the Official Gazette on Oct 10, social media platforms will be prohibited from allowing children under 15 to open accounts. Users aged 15 to 18 will be subject to separate restrictions designed for minors.
The new rules will take effect for newly created accounts on Nov 1 while verification for existing accounts must be completed by Mar 31.
Although the ban targets children under 15, enforcing it could require platforms to verify the ages of virtually all users to establish who is eligible to access their services.
This could also affect adults who use social media anonymously, as they may have to verify their age through e-Government even if they do not disclose their identity on the platform.
The verification system
Before the legislation was passed in late April, governmet officials had said the verification would be used solely to confirm users' ages. Users' identities will not be disclosed to platforms.
The regulations establish an age verification system based on digital tokens generated through e-Government. Users will authenticate their identity on the government portal, obtain a token and submit it to the social media platform when creating an account.
The platform must then confirm that the token was generated through e-Government under the authority of the Cybersecurity Directorate and determine the user's age category.
Under Article 22 of Law No 7578, which amended Additional Article 4 of the Internet Law No 5651, responsibility for enforcing the restrictions rests with social media providers rather than children or their parents.
Applications to be affected
Turkey's legal framework law defines social network providers as individuals or companies operating platforms that allow users to create, view or share content, including text, images, audio and location information, for social interaction.
Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, X and Facebook fall within this definition. However, the relevant regulation does not provide a list of covered services, leaving the status of platforms such as YouTube and WhatsApp dependent on how the legal definition is applied. (VK)