(with Yaman Akdeniz) Turkey‘s new social media law and its consequences

Host: Cansu Çamlıbel | Guest: Yaman Akdeniz

In this fifth episode, host Çamlıbel and her guest Yaman Akdeniz, a prominent Turkish academic and cyber-rights expert, discuss Turkey’s controversial new social media regulations. The new social media law passed in July 2020 places huge liability and legal responsibility on social media platforms and is widely seen as a new tool for the Erdoğan government’s regime to censor content online and put freedom of expression and journalism at great risk.

Topics covered in the podcast include:

• General assessment on what the new social media law means for journalists, activists and other members of the society as social media users
• Great legal and social liability that the law puts on big tech companies
• Possible outcomes for social media platforms and what to expect from them as a response
• The criteria and standard procedure for big tech companies such as Twitter to answer the blocking demands from countries
• Difference between Germany’s social media law and its newly Turkish version
• The consequences for independent news media if social media networks comply with the regulation
• How would this law affect the government and its supporters, who heavily use social media and make good use out of it

This content was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of IPI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.