Erdoğan says his party will draft a bill to 'either completely ban or control' social media

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Social media should be either banned or controlled and regulated, President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested today (July 1) at a meeting with his party's provincial chairs.

Erdoğan's remarks came after insult messages were sent to Finance Minister and his son-in-law Berat Albayrak last night when he announced with a tweet that they had a new child.

Defining the tweets as "immoral," "dishonorable" and "inhuman," Erdoğan went on to say, "We want this kind of media to be completely removed, controlled."

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"We'll never stop chasing these low-lives who attack a family and the values they think they represent through a baby who just opened its eyes to the world," he said.

"Now do you understand why we are against social medias such as YouTube, Twitter, Netflix? To eliminate these immoralities. Social media should be organized. We want these environments to be regulated.

"Turkey is not a banana republic. We will bring our proposal on this issue to the parliament. When legal regulation is complete, we will enable every kind of method.

"As soon as we bring them to our parliament, we want our parliament to check the complete removal of such social media channels.

He also criticized social media companies for avoiding financial responsibility in Turkey, contrary to other countries.

The AKP recently made moves to be more active on social media. On Friday, Erdoğan made a live broadcast with students ahead of the university entrance exams. Outraged because the exams were not postponed, the youth sent hundreds of "no vote" messages on the live chat and it became a trending topic on Twitter.

The ruling party had also initiated a "social media ethics campaign," in early May, calling on its supporters to put green circles on their social media profiles. The project was canceled after 40 days following as some "green-circle" accounts sent tweets with sexual harassment and sexual assault content to pro-opposition figures. (PT/VK)