Turkey to ban social media for children under 15 starting November 1 via e-Devlet

Starting November 1, Turkey is rolling out one of the world's strictest restrictions on children's access to social media. The rules, published in the country's official gazette, require every platform to verify new users' ages at sign-up using tokens issued by the government's e-Devlet system. Any user identified as under 15 will be blocked immediately. Existing accounts belonging to minors face a hard deadline too: all accounts held by children under 15 must be identified and shut down no later than March 31, 2027.

Restrictions for teens aged 15–17: privacy by default

Young people aged 15 to 17 won't face an outright ban, but they'll get a significantly stripped-down experience. By default, their accounts must be private and filtered. Platforms are barred from showing personalized ads based on teens' behavior or interests. Live-streaming features won't be available to this age group. Systems must actively block attempts to take screenshots or save content. Messaging between teens is only allowed if they already follow each other. One of the most notable restrictions: disabling infinite scroll, a feature frequently criticized for fueling social media addiction.

Alongside these limits, the law requires platforms to give parents robust management tools: the ability to control privacy settings, set screen-time limits, approve in-app purchases, and view their teens' activity.

The full list of covered platforms: 10 services

The ban and restrictions apply to ten of the largest social networks and messaging apps: Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, and Reddit. That list covers nearly every major channel young people use to communicate and consume content.

Steep fines and penalties for violations

Companies that break the rules face penalties under Turkish internet law. The maximum fine is 3% of a violating platform's global annual revenue — a substantial sum for large corporations. On top of the fines, additional sanctions include blocking ad displays within Turkey and throttling bandwidth for non-compliant services.

Context: a school tragedy and a global trend

Turkey's parliament passed the law in April 2025, just a week after a school shooting in the country. The tragedy triggered an urgent debate over social media's influence on young people and the need to regulate it. The initiative fits into a broader global trend of tightening controls on children's social media use. Australia was among the first countries to attempt a ban for children under 16, but its experience revealed significant technical and legal implementation challenges. Turkey is hoping to avoid similar problems by relying on its national e-Devlet digital governance system, which it says provides more reliable age verification than systems available in other countries.