Minister announced: New regulation for social media: Gradual age restriction is coming!

Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş said, "We will propose a gradual regulation in digital addiction, with a restriction up to the age of 13 and parental approval between 13-16. We have reached the final stage in our work towards a legal regulation for this."

The Child Rights Monitoring and Evaluation Board convened in the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) Council Hall under the chairmanship of the Minister of Family and Social Services Göktaş.

"We have to protect our children against the risk of digital addiction"

Minister Göktaş continued his words as follows:

-Today, our children are unfortunately exposed to the dangers of the digital world while benefiting from its opportunities. When there is no conscious use of digital media, children face risks such as abuse, peer bullying, harmful content and hate speech. Due to this situation, their social, emotional and academic lives can also be seriously damaged. We have to protect our children against the risk of digital addiction, which has now become a serious problem. We are carrying out protective and preventive work with our 'Social Media Working Group' that we have established for this purpose. In addition, we have reached a total of 159,584 people as of December 2024 with our Privacy Awareness in Children trainings. With the DUY Reporting Platform, families report content that they think is harmful to their children to us. After the necessary examinations, we take measures against objectionable content.

"WE WILL PROPOSE GRADUAL REGULATION FOR SOCIAL MEDIA"

Göktaş, who said that they are working intensively to develop a model specific to Turkey for children's social media use, said, "We will propose a gradual regulation in digital addiction, with restrictions up to the age of 13 and parental approval between 13-16. We have reached the final stage in our work towards a legal regulation for this. As a ministry, we want to offer our children a safer digital world with this legal regulation to be implemented with our relevant stakeholder ministries."