On August 8th, Hüseyin Yayman, the head of the Digital Media Commission in the Turkish Parliament, and a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), called for a ban on access to the social media platform TikTok.
In an interview with Demirören News Agency, Yayman stated that people on the streets had been complaining about TikTok. He said, “People who see me on the street say, ‘If you close this TikTok, you will go to heaven.’ There is a very serious number of criticisms and complaints against TikTok.”
Yayman argued that he saw TikTok as a space where people of all ages post and engage in irrational and absurd behaviors to raise awareness or make clumsy posts. He claimed that this behavior was far from human values, both national and universal, and that it caused great alienation. He added, “It is not possible to accept these.”
His comments came after a series of access bans imposed by the Turkish government and judiciary on well-known websites and platforms such as Wattpad, Instagram, and Roblox.
Yayman called on TikTok to adopt a broadcasting policy that aligns with Turkey’s moral, ethical, and cultural values. He stated that they were against censorship, but social media platforms should also act responsibly.
Regarding the TikTok issue, Yayman argued that it was a matter of national security for Turkey. He claimed that the posts on the platform were so clumsy, strange, and detached from reality that they could not be approved. As the chair of the commission, he said that their stance on blocking access to TikTok was not up to them, but rather the responsibility of the Information and Communications Technologies Authority (BTK). However, he added, “As a commission, we do not have a stance on blocking access to it. But if you ask me as the chair of the commission, politics is done together with the nation. Our nation wants TikTok to be banned.”
Previously, Yayman had stated that social media in Turkey had become the center of evil.
Last month, a Turkish court banned access to the story-sharing platform Wattpad. Last week, the government banned access to Instagram for allegedly failing to comply with the country’s “laws and rules.”
Another Turkish court banned access to the online gaming platform Roblox on August 7th based on “the detection of content that may lead to child abuse.”
