Turkey to ban social media for children under 15 starting November 1, 2026

• accounts are private by default, with no option to make them public;
• only users whom teenagers follow can send them messages;
• a ban on live streams;
• a ban on contact syncing;
• a ban on using personal data for personalized advertising;
• children's profiles will not be recommended to other users, and teenagers will not be shown accounts to follow.

What will parents get?

Platforms will be required to provide parents and guardians with tools to manage children's profile settings and limit usage time. Financial control is spelled out separately: paid transactions can be placed under parental control with spending limits.

What happens to existing accounts?

Platforms must verify the age of owners of existing accounts no later than March 31, 2027. If it turns out that a user is under 15, the profile will be closed — with prior notice to the owner.

Regional context

The Turkish initiative fits into a broader trend of regulating children's social media use in the region. In Kazakhstan, the government has submitted amendments to the Kurultai that would restrict social media registration for users under 16. Once adopted, the authorities will also consider temporarily suspending existing children's accounts. In Kazakhstan, the use of artificial intelligence for age verification is under discussion.

For platforms operating in the Turkish and Central Asian markets, this is a signal: age verification is ceasing to be a voluntary feature and is becoming a mandatory regulatory requirement with specific deadlines — November 1, 2026 and March 31, 2027 in Turkey.

The large electronics and digital services retail market has already faced the tightening of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) rules; now a similar trend is taking hold in the Eurasian region as well, but with stricter age thresholds — 15 in Turkey versus the 16 proposed in Kazakhstan.