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| Twitter creates a legal entity in Turkey to comply with the law |
Twitter announced plans to create a legal entity in Turkey to continue its work in Turkey under the Internet law that came into effect last June.
According to the law, social media companies with more than one million users must store Turkish user data in the country.
These companies must also appoint an official representative in Turkey who must respond to individual requests to remove content that violates privacy and personal rights or to give reasons for rejection within 48 hours.
If the content is not removed or blocked within 24 hours, the company will be responsible for compensation and will risk fines, ad bans, and bandwidth-reducing issues that can render the platform unusable.
Twitter said in a statement: We will continue to work to protect the voice and data of Turks who use Twitter, and we will continue to transparently manage how we deal with requests from governments and law enforcement agencies.
She added: As part of our ongoing efforts to provide services in Turkey, we have carefully revised the recently amended Internet Law No. 5651. To ensure Twitter is always available to all users who use it in Turkey, we decided to create a legal entity.
Turkish authorities fined 40 million lira on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Tik Tok in 2020 for failing to appoint the necessary local actors.
Since then, Facebook, YouTube and Tik Tok have established the necessary legal entities in the country.
Earlier this year, Twitter was one of the social media companies that banned ads in Turkey under the new law.
Turkey imposed ad bans on Twitter, Periscope, and Pinterest in January.
The ban is the next step in a series of measures that require social media companies to have legal representatives in Turkey to deal with content-related complaints.
The Turkish government said: The so-called Internet Law 5651 is necessary to protect the rights of social media users in the country and combat criminal activity on the Internet.
According to Twitter, Turkish law requires 31% of all content removal requests worldwide. The country submitted about 45,800 inquiries, and Twitter said it had responded to a third.