The Turkish parliament has voted through a bill that would ban all children under the age of 15 from using social media. As part of the legislation, social media platforms would be required to enforce age-verification measures on their apps, provide parental control tools, and react more quickly to harmful content being posted.
As reported by The Associated Press, lawmakers have passed the bill in the wake of two deadly school shootings in Turkey, after which police arrested 162 people accused of sharing footage of the tragedies online.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan now has 15 days to accept the bill in order for it to become law, after reportedly saying social media platforms had become “cesspools” in a televised address to the nation.
As well as the major social media platforms, AP reports that online gaming companies would also have to implement their own restrictions on minors, with potential punishments including bandwidth reductions and financial penalties.
This isn’t the first time Turkey has locked horns with social media and online gaming platforms. Instagram has been blocked in the country before, back in 2024, relating to a dispute over the posting of Hamas-related content. Access was restored around a week later, but in the same time period Turkey also banned Roblox over reports of inappropriate sexual content accused of being explorative to children. At the time, a Turkish official also named the “promotion of homosexuality” as one reason for the ban.
Turkey has also temporarily banned Twitter (now called X) on several occasions, most recently after 2023’s devastating earthquakes, though it was not clear at the time why the government may have moved to block the social media platform.
The country’s lawmakers moving to ban under-15s from accessing social media is part of an emerging trend in Europe and across the globe. The likes of Greece and Austria have recently introduced similar legislation of their own, following Australia becoming the first country in the world to ban children under 16 from social media last year. The UK has since considered bringing in tighter restrictions too.
