Lawfare
By Deniz Yuksel
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
As civic discussion migrates from the town square to the timeline, the
Turkish government is scrambling to assert control over online speech.
On Oct. 1, a far-reaching new law restricting internet freedom went
into effect in Turkey. The law requires social media companies to
appoint local representatives in Turkey and comply with draconian
speech-restrive conditions. And what if companies don’t comply? They
will face bandwidth squeeze, exorbitant fines and prosecution. The
provisions were rushed through the Turkish legislature on July 29 as
an amendment to Turkey’s Internet Law, despite overwhelming criticism
from human rights groups and free speech advocates.
The raft of new measures from Ankara functionally outsources the dirty
business of censoring Turkey’s internet to computer engineers in
Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley should not play along.
The amendment requires social media companies whose platforms are
accessed more than 1 million times per day in Turkey—this includes
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok, among others—to
appoint legal representatives in the country by Nov. 2. The
Turkey-based representatives would be responsible for addressing the
Turkish government’s frequent content removal requests within just 48
hours—or face stiff fines. What’s more, the law stipulates that the
representatives must be Turkish nationals. This is not only an unusual
requirement but also one that places the representatives at higher
risk of prosecution if they refuse to remove posts flagged by Turkish
authorities. The law explicitly notes that if platforms ignore court
orders to block content, their Turkish representatives will face
judicial fines.
Should companies fail to designate a representative, they face
administrative fines, a ban on advertising on their platforms within
Turkey, and the reduction of their internet bandwidth by up to 90
percent—effectively blocking access. Russian social media company
VKontakte was the only social media platform to appoint a local
representative before the deadline. The Turkish government responded
by fining Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok 10 million Turkish
lira each (approximately $1.2 million) for noncompliance on Nov. 3,
followed by a second set of fines amounting to 40 million Turkish lira
(approximately $5 million) each on Dec. 3.
The Turkish government has a long history of clamping down on dissent
online, but the amendment marks the launch of a novel and highly
streamlined process of censorship and poses an unprecedented threat to
freedom of expression in Turkey.
Turkey already had in place expansive criminalizations of online
speech. It’s a country where judicial independence has been steadily
undermined, and censoring the web has traditionally been a domestic
and legalistic affair. Turkish courts have acted on Turkish
authorities’ demands to force Turkish network providers to block
access to Turkish content on grounds that it violates Turkish law. In
2019 alone, according to the Freedom of Expression Association,
providers blocked access to 40,000 tweets, 10,000 YouTube videos, and
6,200 Facebook posts at the behest of courts. The Turkish government
also sometimes submits removal requests directly to social media
platforms. Twitter reported that it complied with 18 percent of the
nearly 9,000 removal requests the Turkish government submitted just in
the first half of 2018.
Moreover, the blocking of online content critical of the government
and the prosecution of individuals expressing dissenting opinions on
social media has increased in recent years under the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP). Freedom House has marked Turkey as “not
free” in its annual “Freedom on the Net” survey every year since 2016.
As of 2019, more than 400,000 web addresses were blocked in Turkey,
according to the Freedom of Expression Association. In the past,
Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia have been blocked in Turkey because of
content shared on their platforms. Wikipedia was blocked for nearly
three years over content related to allegations that Turkish
authorities collaborated with various armed groups in Syria. The
government finally restored access to the site in January 2020 after
the Turkish Constitutional Court found the blocking order violated
freedom of expression.
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the government has grown
more aggressive in targeting online speech. Under the guise of
combating “fake news,” “incitement,” and “spreading fear and panic,”
Turkish authorities have used criminal law provisions to target people
discussing the pandemic online or criticizing government health
policies. Between March 11 and May 21, Turkey’s Interior Ministry
accused 1,105 social media users of “disseminating terrorist
propaganda,” including by “sharing provocative coronavirus posts.” Of
these users, 510 were reportedly detained for questioning.
The existing system of censorship, however entrenched, is hardly
efficient. Censoring content through court orders is often a lengthy
and bureaucratic process. That means millions of users can access and
duplicate “unfavorable” content while Turkish courts deliberate the
government’s request. The new social media amendment changes that
equation: It places the burden of content removal on social media
companies and forces them to respond to requests within hours. This
creates a faster, more streamlined, and highly effective censorship
mechanism.
In practice, the law broadens the reach of the Turkish government It
allows the government to block more content, and faster—without having
to justify itself in court. By imposing fines on both companies and
their representatives in Turkey, the law significantly increases the
Turkish government’s powers to force social media companies to censor
content. Previously, social media companies faced no legal
repercussions for refusing Turkish requests. The law also imposes
short review periods on flagged content, potentially forcing platforms
to automatically (or at least aggressively) remove posts reported in
Turkey.
The law violates Turkish people’s rights to free expression online,
and, if successful, it risks spreading far beyond Turkey’s borders.
Germany passed its restrictive NetzDG law in 2017 to address hate
speech on the internet. In the months that followed, the governments
of Turkey, Russia, Singapore and the Philippines all directly cited
the provisions of the NetzDG law to justify their own, harsher
legislation to remove “illegal” online content. Turkey’s law could
function in a related way: These governments and others could use the
law to justify yet more restrictive censorship measures.
The amendment will further squeeze Turkey’s battered civil society,
which depends on social media to rally support. Civil society
activists and particularly human rights defenders are denied access to
the vast majority of Turkish media networks, which are now run by or
under the influence of the government and its allies. In this
atmosphere, social media—despite existing limitations—is a critical
tool for activists to participate in national discourse and draw
attention to abuses.
It would be a huge loss for the country if activists couldn’t make use
of those tools. Social media campaigns have a decisive role in
securing justice for many marginalized communities in Turkey. Take one
recent prominent example: Hundreds of thousands of posts with the
hashtag #SuleCetIcinAdalet (Justice for Sule Cet) circulated on social
media for more than a year after two men raped and murdered Sule Cet
in May 2018. In December 2019, public pressure compelled authorities
to convict the perpetrators, who were released three times during the
trial process. Turkish courts have a notorious track record of
releasing, acquitting and handing reduced sentences to men accused of
femicide. Online campaigns are the only way for people to hold
Turkey’s partisan legal system accountable. Laws that increase
government oversight over social media—like the most recent piece of
legislation to pass—mean that such calls for justice can easily be
censored, denying victims the only opportunity to publicize
wrongdoings and seek remedies. In addition, Turkish authorities could
feasibly use the new law retroactively to wipe the internet clean of
any past documentation of government abuses and corruption.
Increased online censorship will also deprive Turkish people of their
only remaining source of reliable, nonpartisan news. Turkey’s
independent print and broadcast media have been all but extinguished
following years of outlet closures, journalist prosecutions and other
forms of intimidation. With most traditional outlets now run by the
government or its allies, many stories detrimental to the government
are not covered by print and broadcast media. Distrustful of
traditional media, or simply looking for coverage of stories ignored
by TV and print, Turkish people are increasingly turning to news sites
and social media for information: 85 percent of individuals read news
online, 71 percent of Turkish people are on YouTube, 67 percent are on
Facebook, 66 percent are on Instagram, and 44 percent are on Twitter.
Yet just one of these companies, Facebook—which is the owner of
Instagram—has announced that it will not be appointing a
representative to Turkey as required by the amendment. Twitter and
Google—which owns YouTube—have not appointed representatives either,
but they have yet to signal how they will respond to the law.
Facebook’s decision is encouraging. But as the law enters into force,
it is necessary for all of the affected platforms to make their
positions clear. If they choose to appoint Turkish representatives and
comply with the invasive measures outlined in the amendment, social
media companies risk being complicit in the Turkish government’s
crackdown on free expression. Silicon Valley should loudly and
unequivocally call on the Turkish government to respect freedom of
speech online and rescind this law.
Turkey’s new restrictions come at a time when Silicon Valley is under
closer scrutiny than ever in the United States. In October, Facebook’s
Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Sundar Pichai
testified in front of a distrustful Senate committee. Lawmakers
expressed concerns about tech companies’ power and overreach, as well
as their potential influence on the U.S. presidential elections
scheduled just days after the hearing. But Silicon Valley’s impact is
not limited to the United States. Social media platforms have hugely
consequential roles around the world. If Big Tech is committed to
protecting free speech, they must support the rights of all users, no
matter where they are.
But tech companies should not be the only ones standing up to the
Turkish government’s repressive practices. Governments that purport to
defend free speech have an obligation to call on the Turkish
government to undo these restrictions and halt its frequent requests
that social media companies remove content critical of the government
and block users. This wouldn’t just be a public relations exercise:
Calls from the United States and the European Union would certainly
strengthen the hand of companies and civil society groups that
publicly oppose the social media amendment. Yet, the U.S. Department
of State has not issued a statement directly addressing the law
despite many affected platforms being based in the United States.
Turkish authorities are not alone in their efforts to criminalize free
speech online. As in Turkey, authorities in China, Hong Kong, Thailand
and Indonesia continue to detain and prosecute people for posting
criticism of government policies. In Russia, feminist and LGBTI
activist Yulia Tsvetkova is facing up to six years in prison for
posting body-positive drawings on social media. Egyptian authorities
sentenced two women to prison in July over TikToks that “violat[ed]
family values.” Tujan al-Bukhaiti, a 17-year-old Yemeni refugee in
Jordan, faces jail time over “blasphemous” posts. Failure on behalf of
the U.S. and European governments to call the Turkish government out
for its abuses on the internet will just embolden other governments
that might want to codify their censorship practices with similar
social media laws.
As social media companies decide how to deal with the Turkish
government’s continued attacks on free speech on their platforms, they
should recognize that allowing Turkish authorities to dictate their
content moderation policies risks setting a global precedent. If tech
companies agree to become an arm of Turkish censorship, other
repressive states could feel entitled to the same treatment from the
platforms. Likewise, continued silence from the U.S. government and
the EU in the face of increased censorship in Turkey will encourage
more abuses there and beyond. Governments around the world that are
hostile to free speech are watching to see whether the Turkish
government will realize its vision of a tightly controlled internet
where compliant platforms take down users’ government-critical posts
within hours.
*
Deniz Yuksel is the Turkey advocacy specialist at Amnesty International USA.
