Turkey Will Ban Social Media for Children Under 15 Starting November 1, 2026
Starting November 1, 2026, Turkey is banning social media for children under 15. Platforms will be required to verify age via e-Devlet and disable personalized advertising for teenagers.
Starting November 1, 2026, children under 15 in Turkey will officially lose access to social media. The government published the corresponding decree in the official gazette Resmî Gazete on October 10.
This is a complete ban on social media use for minors under 15. The new rule will affect all popular platforms operating in the Turkish market and will require them to restructure their registration procedures.
How Will Platforms Verify Age?
The key mechanism of the new regulation is mandatory strict age verification at registration. Platforms will have to carry it out through the state electronic system e-Devlet.
This tie-in to the state identification system, as the regulator envisions, will eliminate the possibility of minors creating accounts: bypassing verification by providing a false date of birth will become impossible. For the industry, this means the need for technical integration with e-Devlet — a task of a scale never before seen in the social media market.
What Will Change for Teenagers Aged 15 and Over?
The complete ban will only apply to children under 15. For teenagers who have reached that age, a package of serious restrictions on the use of online platforms is being introduced:
- profiles of underage users will be mandatorily switched to private mode; sending and receiving personal messages will be allowed exclusively from verified followers;
- live streaming will be completely prohibited for teenagers;
- personalized advertising and algorithmic recommendations of other pages will be disabled for this category of users;
- automatic contact syncing from mobile device address books and third-party services will be prohibited.
In effect, for users aged 15–18, social media becomes a closed space without an algorithmic feed and targeted monetization — a segment that is one of the most active in engagement for many platforms.
What Obligations Will Platforms Receive?
In addition to verification via e-Devlet and age restrictions, social networks will be required to integrate parental control functionality. Legal representatives of minors will receive expanded powers:
- remote management of children's account settings;
- setting limits on time spent online;
- approval of any financial and paid transactions.
Thus, any in-platform purchases by a minor — from subscriptions to donations — will require explicit parental approval.
What Does This Mean for the Market?
Turkey is introducing one of the strictest age-based regulatory regimes for social media among major markets. Platforms have about two years until November 1, 2026 to implement the requirements: integration with the state identification system, restructuring privacy settings for teenagers, disabling algorithmic recommendations, and introducing parental transaction approval mechanisms.
For advertisers, the regulation effectively means the departure of the 15–18 teenage audience from personalized targeting, and for the audience under 15, complete unavailability of the platforms. Companies operating in the Turkish digital market should already take these changes into account when planning media strategies for 2026 and beyond.
Original: orientalexpress.info
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