Dailymotion¶
Distinct from other major social media platforms, Dailymotion has opted to appoint a real-person representative in Türkiye for legal compliance, rather than establishing a local legal entity (such as a company or branch). The contact details of this representative are explicitly included in its transparency reports.83 Beyond its regular reporting, Dailymotion has demonstrated a commitment to ad transparency, publishing a total of 26 different ad libraries between 2023 and 2025.
| Legal Obligations | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Representative Obligation | Meets | Real-person representative appointed in Türkiye. |
| Local Company Establishment | Not Applicable | Real-person representative model preferred instead of capital company/ branch. |
| Trade Name Condition | Not Applicable | Company title condition not sought as representative is a real person. |
| Explicit Affiliation & Authorization |
Meets | Representative’s contact details and authority explicitly declared in reports. |
| Turnover & Reporting Obligation | Unknown | No public information regarding report submission to BTK. |
| Application Form for Users | Partially Meets | An English application page exists, but no dedicated Turkish page. |
| User Application Processes | Meets | Detailed process for examination and average response times are provided. |
| Transparency Reports | Partially Meets | Detailed statistics on type, time, and results provided, but Article 9/9A data is missing. |
| Personal Data Localization | Does Not Meet | Not specified in transparency reports whether user data is hosted on servers in Türkiye. |
| Hashtag and Content Liability | Unknown | No mention of a procedure specific to hashtags in reports. |
| Creating a Crisis Plan | Unknown | No public information regarding a crisis plan. |
| Providing Information to Judicial Authorities |
Unknown | No statistics regarding data sharing with judicial authorities. |
| Ad Library | Meets | Platform shares “Ad Library” regularly. |
| Bandwidth Throttling Sanctions | Not Applied | Not applied to date under Law No. 5651. |
| Administrative Fines | Unknown | No information regarding whether applied. |
| Other Obligations | Unknown | No publicly available information. |
Transparency Reports Assessment¶
Dailymotion has maintained a flawless reporting record, publishing reports for every period since 2021. The platform cuts a unique profile regarding compliance in Türkiye, particularly in its discipline towards transparency. While reflecting a genuine effort to fulfil legal necessities, its approach contains practices that do not fully overlap with the letter of the Law in certain technical and content-related details.
A positive highlight is the detailed “average response time” data. By tracking metrics for different transmission channels (e-mail, web form, report button) down to minutes and hours, Dailymotion sets a high standard for monitoring the efficiency of rights-seeking processes.
| Period | Turkish Report |
Art. 9 Statistics |
Art. 9/A Statistics |
Categorical Data |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-1 | Yes | No | No | No | 690 applications. |
| 2021-2 | Yes | No | No | No | 314 applications. |
| 2022-1 | Yes | No | No | No | 252 applications. |
| 2022-2 | Yes | No | No | No | 11.028 applications. |
| 2023-1 | Yes | No | No | No | 15.463 applications. |
| 2023-2 | Yes | No | No | No | 148 applications. |
| 2024-1 | Yes | No | No | No | 300 applications. |
| 2024-2 | Yes | No | No | No | 299 applications. |
| 2025-1 | Yes | No | No | No | 378 applications. |
The Categorisation Gap¶
However, a fundamental deficiency emerges when examining the content against the strict requirements of Law No. 5651. Dailymotion categorises applications under headings such as “Copyright”, “Privacy Rights Violation”, “Spam”, and “Other” (hate, violence, etc.). Crucially, the statistical data based on the specific distinctions of Article 9 (personal rights violation) and Article 9/A (privacy violation), explicitly demanded by Law No. 5651, is absent.84
While the “Privacy Rights Violation” category partially overlaps with Article 9/A in substance, the failure to adopt the specific legal terminology means compliance is incomplete. This opacity makes it difficult to understand whether applications are being evaluated based on Turkish statutory law or merely the platform’s own community guidelines.
The Anomaly of 2022–2023¶
Another striking anomaly is the surge in application traffic during late 2022 and early 2023. The volume of applications, typically hovering in the 300-400 band, skyrocketed to over 15.000. Yet, the platform rejected 99% of these requests. Dailymotion attributed this to the misuse of the “Report” button for unrelated purposes, such as account recovery. However, because the legal basis of these user applications remains unclear, verifying Dailymotion’s explanation is impossible.
In summary, Dailymotion fulfils its fundamental obligations such as appointing a representative and reporting regularly, but falls short in the specific details. Its failure to present report contents with the specific article-based breakdowns envisaged by Law No. 5651 leaves a gap in accountability.
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See https://legal.dailymotion.com/en/transparency-in-turkey/ ↩
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Law No. 5651, Supp. Art. 4(4). Also see Procedures and Principles Regarding Social Media Platforms, Article 10(4). ↩