The Turkish government will require all social media users to link their accounts with their official government identification numbers. The new regulations will eradicate online anonymity by requiring users to verify their identities before they can maintain their social media accounts.
The Mechanics of the New Verification System
It was confirmed by the Ministry of Justice that the global social media networks would already take on this new mechanization. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey will start a three-month period during which users must meet new requirements after mandatory legislation receives official approval.
Under this plan, individuals must submit their TC Kimlik number, a unique 11-digit identifier provided by the Directorate General of Population and Citizenship Affairs. The number establishes a direct link to government databases which store secret personal information that contains birth dates and family records and biometric data.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek announced that the system protects people from online harassment and defamation attacks by creating automatic penalties which users receive for their digital behavior. The domestic user base is the only group which this regulation affects. Foreign-operated accounts will remain exempt from verification, meaning offshore disinformation networks can continue anonymously while ordinary citizens lose that option.
Free Speech Concerns and Past Precedents
The critics maintain that the official policy explanation serves to hide an ongoing campaign which suppresses free speech rights. Cybersecurity experts point out that authorities can already trace anonymous users via IP addresses and internet logs. The new requirement for identification documents is perceived by many people as a psychological weapon for intimidation purposes, while they consider it to be an essential security procedure.
Turkey maintains a strict internet censorship system which has resulted in the blocking of more than 1.26 million websites since 2007. Ordinary citizens have faced detention for simply sharing political opinions online. The Turkish Penal Code Article 217 establishes a prison sentence of three years for spreading information which authorities consider “misleading” while anonymous posters face even more severe penalties according to the official Legislation Information System of Turkey.
This approach is not entirely unprecedented globally. There is empirical historical evidence that the method is potentially dangerous to user security. The real-name system was also introduced in South Korea quite similarly in 2007. The Constitutional Court of Korea declared the law unconstitutional through its unanimous decision in 2012. The court found that the law failed to reduce harmful content and instead turned central databases into massive targets for hackers, ultimately compromising the data of 35 million citizens.
