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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said yesterday (July 1) that his Justice and Development Party (AKP) social media should be either "completely eliminated or controlled" and that they would submit a bill to "control" it.
The party has prepared a nine-article law proposal, which is currently being examined in terms of international legislation, Gazete Duvar reported.
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In May, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an allied party of the AKP, submitted a law proposal to obligate citizens to access the internet with their ID numbers.
In 2018, more than 110,000 accounts were examined by the police and more than 7,000 people were detained over their social media posts, according to the Ministry of Interior.
Turkey had previously banned some of the most-used websites in the world, including Wikipedia, Twitter and YouTube.
In yesterday's speech, Erdoğan also accused social media companies by "not taking the financial burden" of their operations, contrary to what they do in other countries.
There are currently more than 54 million social media users in the country of 83 million, BBC Turkish service reported, citing the "Digital in 2020" report by the We Are Social and Hootsuite companies.
Here are facts about internet usage in Turkey: