(The Turkish Post) – Türkiye’s social media ban for children under 15 will take effect on Nov. 1, under a regulation published in the Official Gazette on Saturday, Oct. 10. Social network providers will be barred from serving anyone younger than 15 and must check every user’s age through the government’s online services portal (e-Devlet).
The rules, drawn up by the Presidency’s Cyber Security Directorate, cover domestic and foreign platforms accessible from Türkiye. They set out how the social media ban will be enforced under a law parliament passed in April, and how companies must handle the accounts of teenagers aged 15 to 17.
Family and Social Services Minister Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş announced the details on social media on Saturday. “Social network providers will not be able to offer services to children who have not turned 15,” she wrote.
How age verification will work under the social media ban
Users will get an “age verification token” from the government portal and upload it to the platform. The token shows only whether the holder is over 15 and, if so, over 18. It carries no name, username or other personal data, and providers may use it for age checks and nothing else.
Platforms will reject account requests from anyone under 15. Existing accounts must be verified at least once by March 31, 2027. If a user turns out to be under 15, the platform will close the account after notifying the user and delete the data once any appeal has ended.
Under the regulation, age verification methods must establish whether a user meets the age threshold without identifying the user. Göktaş said the checks would run “without sharing identity information.”
Rules for accounts of 15 to 17-year-olds
Accounts belonging to users aged 15 to 17 will be private by default and cannot be switched to public. Only accounts the teenager follows will be able to message them, and read receipts will not be shown. Follower and following lists will be hidden from other users, and platforms may not recommend these accounts to others.
Livestreaming is off limits for this age group, and platforms must apply technical measures to stop others from taking screenshots of these accounts. Feed designs that serve images and videos in an endless sequence through scrolling, tapping or autoplay are banned, and children’s personal data may not be used for profiling or personalized advertising.
Parental controls and appeals
Parents will be able to control account settings, paid transactions, screen time and location sharing, Göktaş said. The regulation requires platforms to offer parental controls that approve purchases, rentals and paid subscriptions within a spending limit, and to tell the child when these controls are switched on.
Users can challenge an age check result or an account suspension free of charge. The regulation requires that people, not automated systems, review these objections, and that platforms keep the account’s content and data until the process ends.
Why Türkiye introduced the social media ban
Parliament adopted the law about a week after a 14-year-old opened fire at a middle school in the southern province of Kahramanmaraş on April 15, killing nine students and a teacher. Police said they were examining the attacker’s online activity.
Official figures show how many children the social media ban will reach. A 2024 survey by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) found that 91.3% of children aged 6 to 15 used the internet and 66.1% used social media. Nearly 44% had a smartphone of their own.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) opposed the measure, saying children should be protected “not with bans but with rights-based policies.”
Australia’s earlier ban for under-16s
Türkiye joins a small group of countries that set a minimum age for social media. Australia began enforcing a ban for under-16s on Dec. 10, 2025, with fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about $33 million) for platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to comply.
About 4.7 million accounts were deactivated or restricted in Australia in the first weeks, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in January. France and the United Kingdom are also moving toward restrictions for younger users.
In Türkiye, platforms have three weeks to prepare before the social media ban applies to new accounts on Nov. 1.
