Amendments to Law No. 5651 and New Obligations for Digital Game Platforms
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Selin Çetin Kumkumoğlu
Counsel
Yaren Alparslan
Associate
Buse Sığın
The Law on Amendments to the Social Services Law and Certain Other Laws (“Law No. 7578”), published in the Official Gazette dated 1 May 2026 and numbered 33240, has introduced significant amendments to the Law No. 5651 on the Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Combating Crimes Committed through Such Publications (“Law No. 5651”). These amendments impose new obligations on online game stores, including the requirement to appoint a local representative in Türkiye, and introduce measures aimed at enhancing the protection of children and young users in digital environments.
The amendments broaden the scope of existing regulatory obligations and reflect a more interventionist approach, particularly with respect to the protection of minors. In this context, the “local representative” regime (previously applicable to social media platforms in Türkiye) has been extended to cover the digital gaming ecosystem. Additional changes to Law No. 5651 include measures to restrict children’s access to certain digital content, strengthen age verification and content classification mechanisms, and enhance oversight of the impact of social media and online platforms on minors.
Regulation of the Digital Gaming Ecosystem
With Law No. 7578, the definitions section of Law No. 5651 has been expanded to include the terms “game,” “game developer,” “game distributor,” and “game platform,” thereby bringing the digital gaming sector explicitly within the regulatory framework. Within this scope, it is now mandatory to classify game content according to age criteria. Content that has not been classified may only be made available under the highest age category.
In addition, the amendments introduce obligations relating to parental control mechanisms. These include requirements to ensure the availability and proper configuration of account settings enabling parental controls, as well as to subject paid transactions (such as purchases, rentals, and subscription-based services) to parental consent or approval.
Child-Focused Obligations for Social Network Providers
Following the recent amendments, the provision of services to children under the age of fifteen has been expressly prohibited. In order to ensure the effective enforcement of this prohibition, the establishment of robust age verification mechanisms has been made mandatory. In addition, for users who have reached the age of fifteen but are not yet legally adults, platforms are required to offer differentiated services.
Obligation to Appoint a Local Representative
Under the amended framework of Law No. 5651, foreign-based game platforms with daily access exceeding one hundred thousand users from Türkiye are now required to appoint a local representative in Türkiye. In this context, such platforms must designate a natural or legal person resident in Türkiye to ensure the proper receipt and handling of notifications, requests, and communications from the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (“Authority”), the Access Providers Association, and judicial and administrative bodies, as well as to secure compliance with obligations under Law No. 5651.
Furthermore, platforms are required to notify the Authority of the identity of their appointed representative and to ensure that the representative’s contact details are clearly visible and directly accessible on the platform’s website.
The rationale underpinning this obligation appears to be to facilitate effective access to relevant online gaming service providers, ensure the enforceability of regulatory measures, enable the timely handling of requests from competent authorities, and support coordination in fulfilling obligations aimed at protecting users, including minors.
Sanctions Mechanism
The newly introduced framework establishes a gradual and multi-layered enforcement regime designed to incentivize compliance. The amendments to Law No. 5651 significantly strengthen and systematize the sanctions mechanism. In cases of non-compliance, the process is no longer limited to administrative fines but evolves into a structure capable of directly affecting platforms’ commercial activities and accessibility within Türkiye.
In this regard, an initial measure of an advertising ban may be imposed in the event of non-compliance. Should the violation persist, the enforcement mechanism escalates to technical measures, including the throttling of internet bandwidth. Such restrictions may initially be applied at a rate of fifty percent and, in cases of continued non-compliance, may be increased up to ninety percent.
In light of the principle of legality of administrative and criminal sanctions, it is anticipated that these measures will be implemented by the Authority through further amendments to Law No. 5651, similar to the regime previously applied to social network providers that failed to appoint a local representative.
Assessment
The provisions introduced by Law No. 7578 entered into force on 1 May 2026, the date of their publication in the Official Gazette. As observed in prior practice concerning social network providers, sanctions imposed for failure to comply with the obligation to appoint a local representative have proven to be a strong compliance driver. Similarly, online game platforms are expected to ensure prompt and effective alignment with the newly introduced obligations in order to avoid exposure to comparable sanctions.
That said, the obligation to appoint a local representative, coupled with the severity of the associated sanctions, may give rise to disproportionate outcomes, particularly for smaller-scale online game platforms or those with limited technical capacity serving the Turkish market. This, in turn, may have implications for market competition. Accordingly, it is considered critical that the sustainability of the sector be taken into account, particularly in the design and implementation of enforcement measures.
