{"id":1275,"date":"2025-05-08T20:40:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T17:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifade.org.tr\/en\/?page_id=1275"},"modified":"2025-05-16T13:30:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T10:30:56","slug":"joint-open-letter-to-social-media-companies-on-censorship-in-turkiye","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ifade.org.tr\/en\/press-releases-announcements\/joint-open-letter-to-social-media-companies-on-censorship-in-turkiye\/","title":{"rendered":"Joint Open Letter to Social Media Companies on Censorship in T\u00fcrkiye"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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May 8, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

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To:<\/strong>
Mark Zuckerberg
Chief Executive Officer, Meta<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Shou Zi Chew
Chief Executive Officer, TikTok<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Neal Mohan
Chief Executive Officer, YouTube<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Linda Yaccarino
Chief Executive Officer, X<\/p>\n

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We the undersigned civil society organizations urge your companies to uphold the right to freedom of expression of your users in T\u00fcrkiye and resist Turkish state censorship that restricts expression protected under international human rights law. This censorship comes amid nationwide anti-government protests following the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu along with 84 other municipal officials and politicians on March 19, 2025. On May 8, Imamoglu\u2019s Turkish-language X account followed by 9.7 million people became the latest target of state censorship when X complied with a court order to restrict<\/a> it.<\/p>\n

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Social media remains one of the last means through which people have access to independent news and can share their opinions with relative freedom in T\u00fcrkiye. Heightened state censorship and social media companies\u2019 compliance with government pressure risk obliterating this vital space. In light of the broad crackdown on free expression in T\u00fcrkiye, it is even more crucial that social media companies take a firm, united stance against pressure to restrict expression protected under international human rights law.<\/p>\n

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Immediately after the detentions on March 19, internet users in Istanbul experienced bandwidth reduction (internet throttling), restricting access to social media platforms and messaging apps for 42 hours<\/a>. Neither the authorities nor the companies provided any clarification regarding the reasons for these restrictions or the decision to lift them.<\/p>\n

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Amid growing protests, the Information Technologies Authority (BTK) started issuing blocking orders<\/a> for social media accounts of student groups, journalists, civil society organizations, women\u2019s rights groups and human rights defenders. The orders, based on<\/a> article 8\/A of T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s Law No. 5651<\/a>, appear to particularly target accounts that share information and updates on the protest along with those who post content critical of the government. \u0130F\u00d6D\u2019s EngelliWeb project documented 471 X accounts blocked from March 19 \u2013 April 12, affecting 17.2 million followers – ranging from high-profile figures like journalist Erk Acarer (1.2M followers) to grassroots groups like Kad\u0131n Cinayetlerini Durduraca\u011f\u0131z (181K). The BTK\u2019s focus on students (at least 57 accounts, with 1.2M total followers) and women\u2019s groups (at least 22, 500K total followers) aims to choke protest coordination and feminist dissent. Some of the accounts suspended had less than 10 followers. Others had no followers at all. Imamo\u011flu\u2019s account was blocked following another 8\/A order dated April 24, which cited the protection of \u2018national security\u2019 and \u2018public order\u2019. The range of accounts suspended indicates the indiscriminate nature of the crackdown.<\/p>\n

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This is yet another attempt <\/a>from Turkish authorities to control social media platforms through use of the restrictive internet law in critical times or times of unrest. We have previously documented<\/a> intensifying efforts by\u00a0Turkish<\/a>\u00a0authorities to control social media platforms through demands that they block content critical of the government, including ahead of elections<\/a>. We had also issued tailored recommendations to social media companies to navigate the legal pressure, potential human rights impact of government sanctions and increase resilience and transparency. Yet, social media companies\u2019 responses have not aligned with these recommendations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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On March 23, X issued a statement<\/a> saying that it objected to \u2018multiple court orders from the BTK to block over 700 accounts of news organizations, journalists, political figures, students, and others within T\u00fcrkiye.\u2019 <\/strong>On March 26, X announced<\/a> that it had filed an individual application before the Constitutional Court challenging an order by the BTK to block 126 accounts. However, that order was from early February 2025, and \u0130F\u00d6D lawyers challenged that decision with regards to Art\u0131 Ger\u00e7ek\u2019s X account prior to the current wave of protests, rendering X\u2019s response inadequate. As noted above, \u0130F\u00d6D documented that at least 471 accounts were blocked post-March 19, with no further appeals reported.<\/p>\n

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On May 8, X published<\/a>\u00a0the court order they received to block \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s account, stating that they would challenge it in court, emphasizing their strong disagreement and explaining their rationale for compliance.<\/p>\n

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Moreover, in April 2025, Meta published a case study<\/a> outlining how the company responded to hundreds of requests from the BTK concerning \u201ccontent alleged to violate Turkish law.\u201d The case study notes that the content was reported under article 8\/A of Law No. 5651 but does not specify whether the requests came in the form of a court order. In response, Meta said it restricted access to posts, pages, profiles, and groups on Facebook and Instagram that were critical of the government, or that featured content related to the LGBTQ community, music groups, feminist organizations, and Sedat Peker<\/a>. The company stated it took no action on multiple court orders to block content related to recent protests. Politico, however, reported<\/a> that Meta has been fined a \u201csubstantial\u201d amount for not complying with government requests to restrict content.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u0130F\u00d6D\u2019s EngelliWeb project documented<\/a> that Bluesky restricted access to 13 accounts and one post on Turkey since April 17, 2025. It is not clear which specific content posted by these accounts led to their restriction.<\/p>\n

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Meta, TikTok, YouTube and X have all faced pressure in T\u00fcrkiye. In 2021, these companies appointed legal entities in T\u00fcrkiye to comply with Law No. 5651. The pressure significantly intensified<\/a> with legal amendments to the same law in 2022, which increased the sanctions companies can face for failure to comply with content removal and account blocking requests.<\/p>\n

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While companies\u2019 compliance with these requests during and after the March 2025 protests are unclear, the companies\u2019 most recent transparency reports indicate high compliance rate with removal requests. Meta\u2019s<\/a> January-June 2024 and July-December 2024 transparency reports shows Instagram complied with 79.15% and Facebook complied with 42% of content removal requests from Turkish judicial and administrative authorities. The nature of the content is not specified in the reports. TikTok\u2019s January-June 2024 transparency report <\/a>shows it complied with 91.8% of Turkish removal requests. Google does not report on its compliance rate for YouTube specifically, but its overall compliance rate with BTK requests for all Google products for July-December 2024<\/a> was 77.5%. X reported<\/a> an 85.66% compliance rate with government requests from T\u00fcrkiye in the second half of 2024, up from 68% in the first half of 2024.\u00a0 These numbers are worrying at the very least.<\/p>\n

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Recommendations<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), social media companies have a responsibility to respect human rights, which includes resisting government pressure to restrict freedom of expression in ways that violate international human rights law. The undersigned organizations call on your companies to review all ongoing responses to ensure all the following measures are integrated and robustly implemented and monitored:\u00a0<\/p>\n

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