Turkey’s Free Speech Clampdown Hits Twitter, Clubhouse -- But Most of All, The Turkish People

EFF has been tracking the Turkish government’s crackdown on tech platforms and its continuing efforts to force them to comply with draconian rules on content control and access to users’ data. As of now, the Turkish government has now managed to coerce Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok into appointing a legal representative to comply with the legislation via threats to their bottom line: prohibiting Turkish taxpayers from placing ads and making payments to them if they fail to appoint a legal representative. According to local news, Google is the latest company to have appointed a representative through a shell company in Turkey. 

Out of the major foreign social media platforms used in Turkey, only Twitter has not appointed a local representative and subject itself to Turkish jurisdiction over its content and users’ policies. Coincidentally, Twitter has been drawn into a series of moderation decisions that push the company into direct conflict with Turkish politicians. On February 2nd, Twitter decided that three tweets by the Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu violated its rules about hateful conduct and abusive behavior policy. Access to these tweets was restricted rather than removed as Twitter considered them still in the public interest. Similarly, Twitter decided to remove and delete a tweet by the AKP coalition MHP leader Devlet Bahçel, where he tweeted that student protestors were “terrorists” and "poisonous snakes" “whose heads needed to be crushed”, as the tweet violated Twitter’s violent threats policy.

Yaman Akdeniz, a founder of the Turkish Freedom of Expression Association, told EFF 

“This is the first time Twitter deployed its policy on Turkish politicians while the company is yet to decide whether to have a legal representative in Turkey as required by Internet Social Media Law since October 2020.”

As in many other countries, politicians in Turkey are now angry at Twitter both for failing to sufficiently censor criticism of Turkish policies, and for sanctioning senior domestic political figures for their violations of the platform’s terms of service. 

By attempting to avoid both forms of political pressure by declining to elect a local representative, Twitter is already paying a price. The Turkish regulator BTK has already imposed the first set of sanctions by forbidding Turkish taxpayers from paying for ads on Twitter. In principle, BTK can go further later this spring. It will be permitted to apply for sanctions against Twitter starting in April 2021, including ordering ISPs to throttle the speed of Turkish users’ connections to Twitter, at first by 50% and subsequently by up to 90%. Throttling can make sites practically inaccessible within Turkey, fortifying Turkey’s censorship machine and silencing speech--a disproportionate measure that profoundly limits users’ ability to access online content within Turkey.

The Turkish Constitutional Court has overturned previous complete bans on Wikipedia in 2019 and Twitter and