Turkey will bar children under 15 from using social media starting November 1, after the government formally published one of the world’s strictest age-verification regimes. The regulation appeared in Official Gazette No. 33396 on October 10, giving platforms and users three weeks to comply with a system that ties every new account to the state’s digital identity infrastructure.
From November 1, all new social media accounts must be verified at sign-up using an age-verification token from e-Devlet, Turkey’s centralized state digital ID portal, according to reports on the regulation. Existing accounts must complete verification by March 31, 2027, and any account found to belong to an under-15 will be closed. Users aged 15 to 17 will receive a segregated service with no profiling, no personalized advertising, no public accounts, no live streaming and no infinite scrolling. Parliament passed the underlying bill in April.
The state as the only witness to a child’s age
What sets Turkey’s approach apart is the verification mechanism. A user logs into e-Devlet, passes the state’s identity check, requests a token from a service run by the Presidency of Cybersecurity, and uploads it to the platform. The token carries only two facts — whether the holder is 15 or older, and whether 18 or older — but critics say routing all age verification through state infrastructure hands authorities broad surveillance power in a country Freedom House rates “not free” online.
The law also bans any service “likely to produce an addictive effect” for minors, and platforms face fines and bandwidth reductions for non-compliance. The regulation follows an April school shooting in which a 14-year-old killed nine pupils and a teacher in Kahramanmaraş province; President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan responded by calling social media platforms “cesspools” corrupting children’s minds, the Associated Press reported.
A widening global push
Turkey joins a growing list of countries legislating youth access: Australia has introduced restrictions, the European Union proposed under-15 limits in September, and Britain, France, Denmark, Austria, Greece and Spain are pursuing their own rules. Canada is debating an under-16 ban. Whether Turkey’s state-ID model becomes a template — or a cautionary tale — will depend on enforcement, which begins in weeks.
The debate mirrors broader questions about how technology reshapes young lives, a theme News Lineups has covered in its science reporting, and the emergency-response scrutiny seen in recent public-health coverage. Read the regulation details via Seoul Economic Daily and PPC Land’s analysis.
