Facebook said Monday it had started the process of appointing a legal entity as a local representative in Turkey in a bid to comply with the country’s new social media law.
The move comes as a deadline looms for an ad ban that will bar Turkish companies from advertising on platforms that fail to comply with the requirement and fail to appoint a local representative.
Social media networks, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, were handed fines totaling TL 40 million ($5.35 million) in two rounds of penalties in the second half of last year.
“Facebook and Instagram have decided to appoint entity in our country in compliance with the Law No. 7253 that entered into force on Oct. 1, 2020,” said Ömer Fatih Sayan, the country’s deputy transport and infrastructure minister, on his Twitter account.
Facebook said in a statement that this would not change the company’s community standards.
It said that if it faces pressure on those standards or if the global process for reviewing government requests it, it will withdraw the representative.
The platform said it believes that freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and has made efforts globally to protect and defend these values.
“As a matter of fact, more than half of people in Turkey rely on Facebook to stay in touch with their friends and family, express their ideas and grow their businesses,” the statement noted.
