The Turkish Grand National Assembly has approved key provisions of a comprehensive digital regulation code that will reshape the way games and social media operate in the country and restrict access to social media platforms for children under the age of 15.
According to the Turkish official Anadolu News Agency, the bill will make social media platforms compulsory to implement age certification systems, provide parental control tools and require them to react quickly to harmful content. According to the law, digital platforms (e.g. YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) must prohibit underage users under 15 years of age from opening accounts and introduce parental control measures to regulate access for children. Foreign social media platforms are required to appoint representatives in Turkey to ensure compliance with the new regulations. The earlier bill had introduced more stringent measures, including granting the platform the right to close accounts and up to 90 per cent bandwidth restrictions. Following official lobbying by the Turkish Association of Game Developers and global companies such as Google, Meta, Roblox and others, the final version completely eliminated the right to shut down and set a bandwidth limit of 50 per cent.
In addition, amendments to the Turkish Law on Social Services require the appointment of local representatives to foreign games and social platforms with more than 100,000 daily users. Non-compliant platforms face fines ranging from 1 million lire ($22,300) to 30 million lire ($667,000) before bandwidth restrictions become effective. According to the Turkish Game Market Report 2025, the country ‘ s game market had a domestic revenue of $1 billion in 2025 and active players of about 50 million. Other changes include the transfer of age validation responsibilities from developers to platforms and the removal of mandatory data-sharing requirements for studios. The regulation brought Turkey closer to countries such as Australia that had adopted stricter age-limits for access, rather than the EU “safe design” programme. In Australia, access to social media for children under 16 years of age was banned in December 2025, when some 4.7 million accounts identified as minors were blocked by the media platform. Last month, Indonesia introduced new regulations prohibiting children under 16 from accessing digital platforms that may be exposed to pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and addiction. Other countries, including Spain, France and the United Kingdom, are also taking or considering measures to limit children ‘ s access to social media.
