Facebook has started a procedure to comply with the new Turkish internet law. The company says it has appointed a local representative for the country. Earlier, rumors circulated that the company would oppose the law.
Facebook says in a press release that it has closely followed the developments surrounding the internet law, and has finally decided to comply with the law. “Like other companies, we have decided to start appointing a legal entity as a local representative, in accordance with the law.” Other tech companies have already done this. This includes YouTube, for example, Reuters writes.
At the same time, the company says it “recognizes that Facebook is a place where users can exercise their freedom of expression.” The company said it will not change its community standards or its policies for processing government requests as a result of this decision. The company says it will withdraw its representative if it is put under pressure in those areas.
Turkey amended its internet law in 2020, which has since required tech companies with more than a million users to appoint a Turkish representative as a point of contact. With the renewed internet law, Turkish authorities may, among other things, demand that certain content be removed from social media. Companies must respond to this within 48 hours or provide a reason why this is not being done within that time. Tech companies are also obliged to store data from Turkish users in the country itself. Facebook does not mention the latter obligation.
When platforms do not comply with the law, the Turkish government has powers, among other things, to issue fines and limit the bandwidth to the platform in question. This does not block such a service, but such a platform is virtually unreachable in practice.
Rumors had previously circulated that Facebook would oppose the law. The Financial Times stated that Facebook would not comply with the new internet law. The newspaper stated that on the basis of two sources, who would be familiar with the situation.