Articles Foreseeing Restrictions on Social Media Omitted from Omnibus Bill

The articles foreseeing restrictions on social media have been withdrawn from the 62-article omnibus bill, which is also expected to ban lay-offs for 3 months. “They have withdrawn it for now. They will bring it up at the first opportunity,” says HDP MP Paylan.

Hikmet Adal

Articles Foreseeing Restrictions on Social Media Omitted from Omnibus Bill

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Diyarbakır MP Garo Paylan has announced that the articles foreseeing legal arrangements as to social network providers have been omitted from the omnibus law draft.

Speaking to bianet, Garo Paylan has noted that "the draft had six articles that would affect all Internet communication tools." Paylan has announced that all of these articles have been omitted from the draft law.

'It is withdrawn, but only for now'

Indicating that the Parliament incessantly worked for the last seven days due to the recently passed law on criminal enforcement, Paylan has said,

"If they had brought up the law on social media now, it would have faced serious opposition. Moreover, there are serious rumors that there are some Parliament personnel who have been infected with the coronavirus. That is why, they have withdrawn it for now."

Reiterating that "the articles have been withdrawn only for now," Garo Paylan has added, "Because the government has manifested quite clearly that it has an intention of restricting and closing social media. They will bring up these articles at the first opportunity."

'It will introduce regulations beyond censorship'

Stressing the necessity of creating public reaction to prevent the bill from being brought to the Parliamentary agenda again, Paylan has added:

"This law would introduce something beyond censorship. It will bring closure. This law would order that social network providers with over one million users daily would bring their entire data to Turkey. It was saying that if they did not bring this data, they would face access blocks.

"We have an example like China before us. If it is brought up again and enacted as a law, these platforms will withdraw from Turkey one by one as they cannot meet these demands or they will be blocked by the government. So, the draft law brings something beyond censorship, it brings closure."

Draft law also condemned by the HRW

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Turkey Director Emma Sinclair-Webb penned an article about the draft law yesterday (April 13) and criticized it as follows:

"Not content with simply cracking down on individuals for critical social media posts, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's presidency is now intent on using the COVID-19 crisis as a pretext to exert direct control over social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

"Eight articles buried deep in a draft law on economic measures to address COVID-19, seek to strong-arm social media platforms to submit to Turkish government control and censorship.

"The draft law, circulated April 9, stipulates that all platforms accessed by over one million users daily must appoint a legal representative in Turkey on whom courts can serve orders to take down content or block access to accounts. Any platform that refuses would see its bandwidth reduced by 50 and then 95 percent, rendering the platform unusable in Turkey.

"This representative would have to respond within 72 hours to requests to remove content and block access to accounts and report every three months on what content had been removed.

"More importantly, platforms would be required to store Turkey-based users' data in Turkey implying that the authorities could request access to it. Failing to comply could bring fines of up to five million Turkish lira (US$746,000)."

(HA/SD)

Hikmet Adal

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Haziran 2018'den bu yana bianet muhabiri. 2013'te bianet'te staj yaptıktan sonra bianet'in projelerinde de yer aldı. Expression Interrupted, susma24.com, Jıneps, Inside Turkey, tol.org gibi platformlarda haber ve makaleleri yayınlandı. İfade özgürlüğü alanında birçok haber ve makaleye görüş verdi. Yazıları İngilizce başta olmak üzere Fransızca, İtalyanca ve Çerkesceye çevrildi. 8 Mart 2018’deki Feminist Gece Yürüyüşünde çektiği fotoğraflar İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesince sergilendi. Erciyes Üniversitesi Gazetecilik mezunu.