Introduction

Law No. 7578 on Amendments to the Social Services Law and Certain Other Laws (“Law”), which was published in the Official Gazette on 1 May 2026, introduces significant amendments to various legislation with the aim of strengthening the protection of children in digital environments. The provisions of the Law concerning social network providers and gaming platforms will enter into force six months after publication, namely on 1 November 2026.

The new framework mainly targets social network providers and gaming platforms, introducing obligations such as age verification, restrictions for children under 15, parental control tools and content safeguards.

Key Changes Introduced by Law

Under the amended regime, social network providers must adopt additional measures to protect minors, including

• not providing services to children under the age of 15,
• implementing age verification mechanisms,
• offering differentiated services for minors,
• establishing parental control tools, and
• taking measures against deceptive advertising.

Large-scale providers are also subject to stricter timelines for implementing content removal and access restriction decisions. For providers with more than 10 million daily accesses from Türkiye, urgent removal or access restriction decisions must be implemented immediately and within one hour at the latest, and such providers must also take necessary measures to prevent the re-publication on their own websites of content subject to removal and/or access blocking decisions. Failure to comply with the applicable obligations may trigger a staged enforcement regime, including administrative fines, advertising restrictions and, ultimately, bandwidth reduction measures.

Law also introduces a newly regulated category of gaming platforms, with obligations relating to age classification of games, parental control mechanisms, the appointment of a local representative for certain foreign-based platforms, and the provision of information and documents to the Information Technologies and Communication Authority. Unclassified games may only be offered if they are treated as falling within the highest age category. Non-compliance may lead to administrative fines and, ultimately, bandwidth reduction measures.

Conclusion

The regulations introduced by the Law significantly expand the scope of obligations relating to the protection of children in digital environments and establish a stricter compliance regime particularly for social network providers and gaming platforms. In this regard, it is important for social network providers to review their current and future service structures and closely monitor regulatory developments concerning the protection of children.

The full text of the Law is available at this link.