(ANSA) - ISTANBUL, 18 JAN - Facebook has announced the appointment of a legal representative in Turkey, on the eve of new heavy sanctions for failure to comply with the Ankara controversy on the giants of the web.
The US social network, along with the other major digital companies, from Twitter to YouTube, had suffered millions of dollars for failure to comply with the law, in force since October and considered by oppositions and NGOs a "gag" to internet freedom.
The appointment also applies to the subsidiary Instagram.
In case of further resistance, Facebook would have risked a halt to advertising and a reduction by June of the bandwidth of up to 90%, equivalent to a substantial blackout.
The company points out that its platform intends to be a space of "freedom of expression".
In addition to the appointment of a representative, responsible for the contents and their removal within 48 hours at the request of the judicial authority, the Turkish legislation provides for platforms with over one million unique visitors per day to catalog the data of users on local servers, raising privacy concerns. .
The reform was strongly supported by President Recep Taylor, who, despite his great popularity on these platforms, has never spared criticism of social media since their use in the anti-government protests of Gezi Park of 2013.
In recent days, the Ankara leader has also promoted a boycott of WhatsApp for the new rules on privacy, switching to Telegram and the Bip local messaging app.
(HANDLE).