The new era has officially begun for social media companies and gaming platforms in Turkey. The Social Services Law No. 7578 and the Law on Amendments to Certain Laws, published in the Official Gazette, brought new obligations to digital platforms on topics such as the protection of children, age verification, parental control, having representatives and rapid compliance with content decisions. Age verification and parental control obligations came to social media and game platforms.
Law No. 7578, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the Turkish Grand National Assembly on April 22, 2026, entered into force by being published in the Official Gazette. The regulation directly concerns not only social media platforms, but also game distributors and gaming platforms. With the law, the protection of children in digital environments, the responsibility area of platforms and legal sanctions have been moved to a broader framework.
With the amendments made to Law No. 5651, the obligations of social network providers have been increased. According to the new regulation, social network providers will not be able to provide services to children under the age of 15. Platforms will have to take the necessary technical measures, including age verification, to fulfill this obligation. The regulation does not only cover those under the age of 15. A separate service structure will also be established for users who are over 15 years old but are in the child category.
Social network providers will take the necessary measures to provide differentiated services for this age group and publish the implemented measures on their websites. Parental control tools of the platforms are also at the center of the new regulation. In social media services, systems where families can monitor their children’s accounts, usage habits and in-platform interactions will need to be presented in a clear, understandable and functional manner.
These tools will not only be limited to content moderation. Parental approval mechanisms will also be put into effect in areas such as purchase, subscription and usage period. Social network providers with daily access from Turkey exceeding 10 million are also required to act faster. Platforms within this scope will implement content removal or access blocking decisions made in emergency situations within one hour at the latest.
In addition, proactive measures will be taken to prevent the re-sharing of content that has previously been determined to be unlawful. The law also clarifies BTK’s response time to requests for information and documents. Social network providers will be obliged to provide the information and documents requested by the Information Technologies and Communications Authority immediately and within 15 days at the latest. Gaming platforms have been included in such a comprehensive legal framework for the first time.
With the law, the concepts of “game”, “game developer”, “game distributor” and “game platform” were defined. Thus, not only the companies that provide content in the gaming ecosystem, but also the platforms that provide distribution and access infrastructure are clearly included in the scope of regulation. One of the most important topics introduced for gaming platforms was the age rating requirement. Platforms will not be able to offer games that are not properly rated to users.
Unrated content can be accessed by being included in the highest age category. This practice will prevent games with unclear ratings from being openly presented to children. A representative requirement has been imposed on foreign game platforms with more than 100 thousand daily access from Turkey. These platforms will appoint a real or legal person representative in Turkey to fulfill the notices, notifications and requests sent by BTK, Access Providers Association, judicial authorities and administrative authorities.
Representative information will be reported to BTK and published in a way that can be easily seen on the platform’s website. Gaming platforms will also be obliged to offer parental control tools. These systems will be used especially to control children’s in-game spending, subscription transactions and access to age-inappropriate content. Thus, the child protection approach introduced on social media has also been transferred to gaming platforms.
Gradual sanctions will be applied to platforms that do not comply with the obligations. In the first stage, administrative fines ranging from 1 million TL to 10 million TL may be imposed. If the violation continues, the penalty may increase from 10 million TL to 30 million TL. The sanction process may become even more severe for social network providers. If compliance is not achieved within 30 days despite the administrative fine, new advertisements may be banned on the relevant platform in Turkey.
If the incompatibility continues for 3 months, the internet bandwidth will first be reduced by 50 percent and then by 90 percent. These decisions will be made by the criminal judgeship of peace and will be implemented by access providers within 4 hours at the latest. Game platforms also have bandwidth throttling sanctions. If the obligations are not fulfilled and the violation continues despite the fines, the BTK President may apply to the court to reduce the platform’s internet bandwidth first to 30 percent and then to 50 percent.
An important part of the new law came into force on the day it was published in the Official Gazette. However, a 6-month transition period was granted for some technical and administrative obligations for social media and gaming platforms. During this period, platforms will need to make their systems compatible with the new regulation in areas such as age verification, parental control, appointment of representatives, compliance with content decisions and age rating.
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