Link: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/19/turkey-slaps-advertising-ban-on-twitter-with-new-social-media-law
Turkey has hit Twitter, Pinterest, and Periscope with advertising bans after they failed to follow Facebook and appoint a local representative to take down contentious posts under a new media law published on Tuesday. Under their law, social media companies that do not appoint such representatives are liable for a series of penalties, including the move by the information and communication technologies authority to impose advertising bans. Turkey’s official gazette said the bans went into affect from Thursday. New law allows authorities to remove content from platforms, rather than blocking access as they did in the past. In previous months, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter faced millions of dollars in fines in Turkey for not complying. Companies that do not abide by the law will have their bandwidth slashed, essentially blocked access.
With social media on the rise, more and more less democratic countries have been putting bans and laws on social media. Multiple countries have put bans and laws on social media because of censorship and things they don’t agree with. By Turkey putting advertising bans on some social media’s, it is limiting the access of advertisers to other countries and censoring their products. This also poses a risk of Turkey and other potential countries hiding products from their citizens that could benefit them.
This censorship ties into globalization because many countries like China and North Korea have censored things from other countries and don’t allow their citizens to view them. Multiple people in more openly free democratic countries believe that this censorship of certain social media’s or information is an infringement of their human rights.