Signal for social media regulation from Abdulkadir Uraloğlu: Necessary actions will be taken against those who do not fall into line

The horrifying posts on social media platforms Telegram and Discord, which came to light following the femicides that shook Turkey, continue to remain on the agenda.

Following the scandalous posts, an access ban was imposed on Discord on October 9.

Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu made statements on Kanal 7 regarding posts containing violence and abuse on social media.

Stating that society loves social media, Uraloğlu said, "While global social media usage is 6.5 hours, it is 7 hours in our country."

REGULATIONS ARE BEING MADE

Emphasizing that social media needs to be disciplined according to certain rules, Uraloğlu also announced that regulations are being prepared. Stating, "It is not a matter of us restricting people's choices," Uraloğlu added, "We shut down Discord. If it had been shut down before the well-known incidents, there would have been a serious debate."

Uraloğlu's statements are as follows:

"First of all, we as a society love social media. It absolutely needs to be disciplined here according to certain rules. We are making regulations at this point.

I am saying this; I exclude people who do business there. Other than that, what have we lost? We just need to maintain our reflex to protect our citizens, our children, our offspring. We shut down the Discord application. If we had shut it down before these well-known incidents, there would have been a serious debate, but now there was no outcry. Therefore, we need to manage this side correctly as well.

"WE MAY HAVE A DEMAND IN TURKEY: 'YOU WILL NOT POST THIS CONTENT'"

People should not be deceived regarding violence and prostitution. Some platforms do not have representatives in Turkey. Discord and Wattpad do not have representatives. On the other hand, they do not necessarily have to.

We wanted the more widely used ones to have representatives. Perhaps it needs to be expanded even further. Regulations could be made in advance, such as 'You will not post this content in Turkey.' We are working on this.

There are stages. We warn them. Secondly, if they do not correct it, we say, 'I am imposing an advertising ban.' If that doesn't work and they still don't listen, we throttle the bandwidth. If they still don't listen, we impose an access ban. We have started to implement these.

After Instagram, they saw that what is necessary is being done. As citizens, do they say, 'Let's freeze our membership on this platform for a day when there is an attack on our national and spiritual values?'

Necessary actions will be taken against those who do not fall into line.

We do not want to be in a position of acting with a prohibitive mentality. The penalties provided by the laws must be deterrent. Especially our young brothers and sisters should not believe the news they encounter without verifying it."