Youtube to appoint legal representative in Turkey to comply with new law

The step will provide a local point of contact for the government and will not change the way Youtube reviews content removal requests and it will not change how Youtube handles or keeps user data, the video-sharing platform said in an announcement on its official blog.

"Currently, we review government removal requests when notified through the correct legal processes and disclose these requests in our transparency report, in keeping with our stance on transparency. We will continue to evaluate these requests against the law and our own policies, maintaining the processes we have in place," Youtube said.

Earlier this month, Turkey's Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) imposed a second fine of 30 million lira ($3.8 million/3.1 million euro) on Youtube and several other social media platforms with over one million daily users in Turkey for not appointing local representatives in line with the changes to the internet law that took effect on October 1, Anadolu Agency reported. In November, the platforms were fined 10 million lira each for failing to appoint local representatives in the first 30 days after the changes entered into force.

(1 euro = 9.5313 lira)