Türkiye will bar children under 15 from social media from November 1, 2026, under a new regulation that also introduces government-issued age tokens, restricted accounts for older teenagers, and a March 31, 2027 deadline for verifying existing accounts. If you live in Türkiye, run a platform used there, or parent a teenager there, here is what changes — and what to do before the deadlines.
The regulation, issued by Türkiye's Presidency of Cybersecurity and published in the Official Gazette (issue 33396) on October 10, 2026, follows legislation passed by parliament in April to strengthen safeguards for minors online. Family and Social Services Minister Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas has argued that platforms treat children as commercial assets and that the state must protect young people from online harm.
What exactly changed
Old rule: platforms set their own minimum ages and age checks, with inconsistent enforcement, and teenagers largely received the same service as adults, including personalised advertising, public profiles and algorithmic feeds.
New rule: from November 1, social media providers accessible from Türkiye may not serve anyone under 15 at all. Users aged 15 to 17 receive a segregated, restricted service: accounts private by default, follower and following lists hidden, messaging limited to accounts they already follow, no livestreaming, no personalised advertising, no public profile recommendations, and no infinite-scrolling feeds. Platforms must also add technical safeguards against screenshots of teenagers' profile photos, posts and images, and provide parental-control tools.
Who is affected
Children under 15 in Türkiye lose access, and their existing accounts must be closed after notice if verification confirms they are underage. Teenagers aged 15 to 17 keep access but under the restricted service described above. Parents and guardians of affected children will need to deal with account closures and the new verification steps. Platforms of every size are covered — the regulation applies to domestic and foreign providers accessible from Türkiye, with no user-count threshold — and advertisers targeting teenagers lose personalised-ad inventory for that age group.
The scale is large: according to a 2024 survey by the Turkish Statistical Institute cited by Xinhua, 91.3 percent of children aged six to 15 in Türkiye used the internet, while 66.1 percent used social media.
What you need to do
For new accounts from November 1: age is verified through an "age verification token" generated via e-Devlet, Türkiye's official online government services portal. The user logs in to e-Devlet, passes its identity check, requests a token, and uploads it to the platform. The token tells the platform only whether the holder is 15 or older and 18 or older — no other personal data is transferred, and platforms may use it for nothing but age checks. Visitors who are not resident in Türkiye use a passport-based exceptional token instead.
For existing accounts: verification must be completed by March 31, 2027. Türkiye's Disinformation Combat Center has warned of scam messages claiming "Your account will be closed" or "Verify your age immediately" — it says no account will be closed on November 1 itself, and users should ignore urgent messages and use only the official e-Devlet route. If a platform suspects an account belongs to an under-15, it must suspend it pending verification, and users can appeal decisions free of charge, with a human review.
For parents: talk to children about the change before November 1, check which accounts they hold, and expect restricted settings — not a full ban — for 15- to 17-year-olds. For platforms: build the token-acceptance flow, the segregated 15–17 service, and the March 2027 verification sweep now, since the regulation allows enforcement after notice and a chance to fix a breach.
Why it matters
Supporters, including the government, say the rules protect children's physical, mental and emotional development and limit the personal data used for age checks to the age threshold alone — a narrower design than handing identity documents to platforms. Critics warn that routing every social media account through a state identity portal gives authorities broad visibility over who is online, in a country rated "not free" online by Freedom House, and that determined teenagers will find workarounds. Both sides agree on one practical point: Türkiye's model — the state, not the platform, as the witness to a child's age — is one other governments will watch closely.
The key dates to remember: November 1, 2026 — under-15 ban and token checks for new accounts begin; March 31, 2027 — existing accounts must be verified.
Sources: Xinhua, Türkiye Today, Daily Sabah.