The Turkish parliament has passed a landmark law restricting minors' access to social platforms, joining a growing global movement to protect children online.
The trend is unmistakable: from Ankara to Brussels, governments are increasingly convinced that the digital world was not built with children in mind, and that it falls to lawmakers, not platforms, to fix it © Mena Today
Turkey has become the latest country to draw a hard line between children and social media.
The Turkish parliament adopted a law Wednesday evening banning under-15s from registering on social networks, requiring platforms to implement age verification systems and giving parents tools to monitor screen time and online spending.
In cases of emergency, major platforms will be required to remove harmful content within one hour of it being flagged. The law will take effect six months after its publication in the official gazette.
The move places Turkey alongside a rapidly expanding club of countries wrestling with the same question. In Europe, momentum is building fast.
Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the leaders of twelve EU member states, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain, debated a similar under-15 restriction, double the number of countries that had expressed interest just last autumn.
French President Emmanuel Macron, one of the measure's most vocal champions, has gone further, calling for a monthly "screen-free day" for young people to reconnect with reading, sport and what he described as "the vitality of real life."
The trend is unmistakable: from Ankara to Brussels, governments are increasingly convinced that the digital world was not built with children in mind, and that it falls to lawmakers, not platforms, to fix it.
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