Twitter to appoint Turkey representative: official

Twitter will appoint a local representative in Turkey under a contentious social media law that allows authorities to remove content from platforms, a government official said on Friday.

Turkey's new social media regulations entered into force in October after being passed in parliament by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party.

They require platforms with more than one million unique daily users to appoint representatives who can handle court orders to take down offending content within 48 hours.

Non-compliance could lead to fines or restrictions on bandwidth, blocking access to the platforms.

In January, Turkey hit Twitter, Pinterest and Periscope with advertising bans after they failed to appoint a local envoy to take down contentious posts under the law.

Facebook has appointed a representative to comply with the Turkish law. 

Read more: Turkey hits Twitter, Pinterest with advertising bans

Turkey's deputy minister for infrastructure Omer Fatih Sayan said on Friday that Twitter would follow the suit, the Anadolu state news agency reported.

Rights advocates see the new regulations as part of the government's attempt to control social media and clamp down on dissent.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay connected