Australia’s ban on social media for under 16s has been approved by the Senate following the House of Representatives. Will a similar ban be implemented in Turkey? This question has sparked debates among the public. Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu made a statement regarding the issue. Minister Uraloğlu stated, “We will set criteria such as not accepting membership for under 16s on social media platforms, not being able to play games on their portal. We have not made this decision yet. We are discussing it intensively. After making a decision, we will say, ‘Do what is necessary after regulating the legislation.'”
During a live broadcast, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu made significant statements regarding social media platforms. Highlighting the importance of social media platforms, Uraloğlu expressed his views on whether a ban on social media for under 16s should be implemented, saying, “We can leave it to individuals who have reached the age to make this choice. But I believe that those under 16 should be disciplined and should not be allowed to open social media accounts. We are consulting with many ministries and institutions on this issue.”
Key points from Minister Uraloğlu’s statements are as follows:
“We do not like the word ban; regulation, because there is a lot of gray area there. It is a very dynamic process. Therefore, we must keep up with certain things without missing them. Many countries around the world are implementing different regulations regarding social media platforms. You know the arrest of a social media platform in recent months. There are bans in many countries. Such as the ban on TikTok. The ban on the use of some social media platforms by public officials, etc. Looking at the numbers in Turkey, almost 75 million people have accounts. Many of our people are members of Instagram, Youtube, and other platforms. We are almost opening accounts for newborn babies.
Will there be a ban on social media for under 16s?
It says in some movies, when you search on Google, it asks for +18 age. Let’s assume that someone under 16 enters with the intention of just playing games, chatting with friends. If you take them elsewhere, encourage them, provoke them, that’s another story. We can leave it to individuals who have reached the age to make this choice. But I personally believe that those under 16 should be disciplined and should not be allowed to open social media accounts. We are consulting with many ministries and institutions on this issue.
“We will say ‘Do what is necessary after making a decision’
First of all, it encourages violence, provokes. There is peer bullying. There are contents that a person of a certain age should not be exposed to, going up to pornography. We believe that it encourages society to commit crimes; we believe that young people are more likely to believe in the news they spread without questioning. We can put a headline saying that those who believe in fake news the most are young people. We can open a title about sexuality. We can open a title about the breakdown of the family structure. We are following the whole world. We believe that 16 years old is correct in this sense. We think that those over the age of 16 should be able to open accounts. We will set criteria such as not accepting membership for under 16s on social media platforms, not being able to play games on their portal. We have not made this decision yet. We are discussing it intensively. After making a decision, we will say, ‘Do what is necessary after regulating the legislation.’
We should not provide our Turkish ID number here. We currently have criteria related to mobile phone subscriptions. It is mostly opened under the names of families. Perhaps some questions will be asked about determining the age there. Even if it cannot be determined initially, there is a world of artificial intelligence to follow. We are discussing these. In some way, we will be able to provide this in a general sense. The use of VPN is a legal issue.
Will VPN be blocked?
There is a certain fee involved. Banking systems operate through this. When we try to ban it, we will create some obstacles for normal functioning systems. In the future, of course, preventing the use of VPN in this sense will be on our agenda.
What is the current situation with Roblox and Discord? Will they be unblocked?
We have an effort to support portals that are suitable for our culture and beliefs. Let me tell you about Roblox. Turkey has representatives of 8 social media platforms. Roblox and Discord are not among them. Roblox has 15 million subscribers. As long as they regulate the content we want, it is possible for them to be unblocked. During the process of shutting down Roblox, we received very serious feedback from many families saying, ‘Were these also among them.’ There is of course a reaction from children; but beyond that, many families, even children, have no idea. If they remove the content we want, it is possible for us to open Roblox again. There are discussions about whether mainstream broadcasting companies, TV channels will be removed after a while. Discussions are ongoing about whether Youtube will be left to its counterparts.
We all have certain responsibilities. It is possible that you may face sanctions, but you also have a conscience. In such platforms, you can make many posts that provoke society, threaten security. There are sanctions, but not in terms of discipline like mainstream media. We closed 119 FETÖ accounts of X. Social media platforms or internet media from abroad say, ‘It is an organization established in America, the responsibility lies there, I have these rules’ says. Well, we also have rules. We warn those who do not comply, impose fines, put bands, and finally close them. I think we will make these decisions within 2025. We are talking to relevant ministries. The most challenging point is to be able to do this without wearing the cloak of prohibition. We definitely want to protect our children. We have banned access to Instagram. We are discussing whether we could have handled that process more openly, professionally. Discord appealed the court decision. Roblox is in talks with us. We tell them what we want.
“We are in a good position in terms of intervention in cyber security”
We have employees working in the USOM under our Information Technologies and Communication Authority for cyber security. A team that intervenes in cyber incidents. We are in contact with 2400 individuals in both the private and public sectors who have some affiliation with social media. We constantly monitor the 17 million IP addresses in Turkey 24/7. We conduct these checks with 5 local and national software we have developed. We are in a very good position in terms of intervening in cyber incidents, similar to France and Germany in Europe.
“Personal data has not been stolen”
Regarding the leakage of data, there is currently no recent situation. It is not possible for all data to have leaked. There was a certain leakage related to certain individuals who have access to certain data. This was investigated within their jurisdiction due to their duties. When defining the system, you do not allow everyone to access every data. You allow access up to a certain authority. We saw a certain leak. This is a process carried out by our Ministry of Interior. I can say with confidence that there is no current leakage. It happened as much as the person or people with access legally obtained. No one has entered illegally and stolen information. We block 422 major attacks per day. We block thousands of harmful accesses. Cyber attacks generally come from abroad.
INTERNET SPEED: WE SHOULD BE IN A BETTER PLACE
Currently, we have 600,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables in Turkey. We have been able to bring these lines to certain streets. The duty of the public or companies related to this business is to come to the entrance of the building. The installations inside the building are generally copper. The streets I mentioned are fiber at the beginning of the street, at the entrance of the building. There are those who convert from copper. The speed and limits requested by the end-user in subscriptions are decisive here. When we look at the average speed in Turkey, we are not where we want to be, very clearly. There is more work to be done. We need to bring the kilometers closer to millions. Right now, it’s 600,000. When we reach 700-800 thousand, we will solve many problems. The primary responsible party is Turk Telekom.
HE SET A DATE FOR 5G: IN 2026…
I was in South Korea. They had 5G, which was faster than 4.5G in Turkey. I experienced this myself. We used foreign equipment in 4.5G. Let’s switch to 5G equipment as much as we can localize it at a more affordable price. We will present it to our President and receive his instructions. We believe we will start receiving signals in 2026.
