Turkish parliament passes bill to restrict social media access for kids under-15

Turkish lawmakers passed a bill late on Wednesday that includes restricting access to social media platforms for children under 15, State media reported.

The legislation is the latest in a global trend to protect young people from dangerous online activity.

Its passage comes a week after a 14-year-old boy killed nine students and a teacher at a middle school in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkiye, in a gun attack.

Police are investigating the online activity of the perpetrator, who also died, in a bid to uncover his motivation for the attack.

The bill will force social media platforms to install age-verification systems, provide parental control tools and require companies to rapidly respond to content deemed harmful, the State-run Anadolu news agency said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan must now accept the bill within 15 days for it to pass into law. He spoke in the wake of the Kahramanmaras killings of the need for to mitigate the online risks to children’s safety and privacy.

“We are living in a period where some digital sharing applications are corrupting our children’s minds and social media platforms have, to put it bluntly, become cesspools,” he said in a televised address Monday.

The main opposition party - the Republican People’s Party, or CHP — has criticised the proposal, saying children should be protected “not with bans but with rights-based policies.”