Jan. 19 (UPI) -- The Turkish government announced an advertising ban Tuesday against Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest for not complying with a new law requiring social media companies to hire legal representation in the country.
The three-month-old law requires social media outlets with more than 1 million users to maintain legal representation in Turkey to address complaints. Turkey could also limit bandwidth which could essentially render the sites unusable in the country.
Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Dailymotion and the Russian social media site VKontakte have all agreed to hire legal firms in Turkey.
"We hope that Twitter and Pinterest, which have still not announced their representatives, will rapidly take the necessary steps," Omer Fatih Sayan, the deputy minister in charge of communications and infrastructure, said.
Sayan said the ban will be enforced by Turkey's Information and Communication Technologies Authority, Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, Central Bank and Tax Inspection Board. Sayan said the legal representation will help the companies address issues connected with abuse, slander and rights violations on their platforms.
"We will never allow digital fascism and anarchism to dominate in Turkey," Sayan said.
