Facebook will Appoint a Representative to Turkey

Facebook will appoint a representative to Turkey. One day before the ad ban starts, Facebook announced that it will appoint a representative. Social media giant Facebook has announced a day before for the advertising ban, it has decided to appoint a representative. The statement made by the company, said, “like some other companies affected by the law, we have decided to start the appointment process of a representative as a legal entity in Turkey in line with new regulations.” The full text of Facebook's statement was as follows: “- We believe it is a fundamental human right of freedom of expression as Facebook and we're working on a global scale to protect ​​and defend these values. More than half of the people in Turkey rely on Facebook to stay in touch with their friends and family, express their opinions, and grow their businesses. - Since the first day, we have been closely following the developments in Turkey regarding Law No. 5651, which was recently revised and brought new obligations for social media platforms. Like some other companies affected by the law, we have decided to start the appointment process of a representative as a legal entity in Turkey in line with new regulations. While taking this decision, we would like to underline the importance of our platform as a place where users can exercise their right to freedom of expression. - The decision we made does not change the Facebook Community Standards or the review processes of content removal requests made by government agencies. Therefore, we would like to point out that we will withdraw our representative if we are insisted on acting in a manner that does not comply with these principles. We will continue to examine and evaluate requests from the state in line with our responsibilities brought by our membership of the Global Network Initiative as well as these principles, and in accordance with the United Nations' Business and Human Rights Guidelines. In addition, we will continue to share the details of the restricted content in accordance with our current transparency processes. - We inform the public that our commitment to protecting people's freedom of expression and other human rights will remain unchanged.”   With the “Social media law” also referred to as “Law Proposal Amending the Law Regarding the Regulation of Publications Made on the Internet and the Fight Against Crimes Committed Through These Publications”, a new era started in social media in Turkey. In this context, social network providers with a daily access of more than one million were obliged to appoint representatives with the law enacted on October 1, 2020. Criminal sanctions were imposed on companies that could not appoint a representative, and each of these companies was fined 10 million lira in the first stage and 30 million lira in the second stage. As for the advertising ban is the next step from fines in accordance with the law, many companies had appointed representatives to Turkey.