This article has to open with a caveat: the Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices contains no provision at all on social media influencers. The categorical rules circulating online in the form of “put this label in that place” come not from the Regulation but from a separate guideline issued by the Advertising Board, and that guideline is not among the official legislative texts on which this article is based. What follows sets out only the framework that emerges from the text of the Law and the Regulation, and shows you where to look for the detail.
An honest finding first: the Regulation has no influencer provision
A search of the full text of the Regulation, including its annexes, turns up none of the expressions “etkileyici”, “influencer” or “social media”. Accordingly, the answers to questions such as which label is to be used, where in a post the label is to be placed, and whether a distinction is drawn between video, image and story formats are simply not in the Regulation. No provision to that effect can be quoted from this document.
Basis 1: the words “in any medium” cover influencer content
In defining commercial advertising, Article 61(1) of Law No. 6502 imposes no limitation as to medium: “… announcements in the nature of marketing communication made by advertisers in any medium in written, visual, aural and similar ways.” The definition contains neither a requirement that there be a publishing organisation nor a list of media.
Article 4(1)(ı) of the Regulation names the internet expressly when defining a medium: “Medium: the place and environment in which the advertising and promotional message and the person, group or community in a position to receive that message meet; communication channels such as television, print media of all kinds, the internet, telephone, radio and cinema, together with communication tools such as outdoor and printed material,”
Read together, these two provisions yield this result: content produced in return for payment or a free product from a brand, and promoting that brand, is commercial advertising whatever platform it is published on. No special article is needed; the definition already covers it.
Basis 2: the ban on surreptitious advertising and the identifiability requirement
Law No. 6502, Article 61(4): “The inclusion, for advertising purposes and in a promotional manner, of the name, brand, logo or other distinctive form or expression relating to goods or services, or of trade names or business names, in articles, news items, broadcasts and programmes without it being clearly stated that this is advertising, is deemed surreptitious advertising. Surreptitious advertising, whether aural, written or visual, is prohibited in every communication medium.” The scope of the prohibition is again medium-neutral.
Article 6(1) of the Regulation sets the outcome standard: “Whatever its form and whatever the medium in which it is published, it must be clearly understood that an advertisement is an advertisement.” Article 6(3) then ties the distinction to editorial content: “Advertisements must be clearly distinguishable from editorial content, both visually and aurally.”
Article 22(1) of the Regulation repeats the prohibition, and Article 22(2) protects the editorial independence of media outlets. For the detailed operation of these provisions and the three-part assessment test, see the article on penalties for surreptitious advertising.
Basis 3: Additional Article 1 and the Advertising Board guidelines
The only provision showing where the Regulation refers the gap in this field is Additional Article 1 (added by Official Gazette of 1/2/2022, No. 31737). The text: “Guidelines aimed at protecting consumers against commercial advertising and unfair commercial practices shall be prepared by the Advertising Board and published on the website of the Ministry of Trade. The provisions of a published guideline shall be applied together with this Regulation.”
The final sentence is decisive. A guideline is not a non-binding advisory text; the Regulation has declared that it is to be applied together with its own provisions. A breach of a labelling rule in the guideline may therefore be treated as a breach of the Regulation and may form the basis for the sanctions in Article 77(12) of Law No. 6502.
In what capacity does the news site act in this relationship?
Who the sanction is applied to depends on the site’s capacity in the particular transaction. Applying the three definitions in Article 4 of the Regulation to a news site produces the following picture:
| Capacity | Definition (Reg. Art. 4(1)) | Does it fit a news site? |
|---|---|---|
| Media outlet | “The person who owns, operates or leases out any medium in which advertising is published and through which it reaches the target audience” (subpara. (i)) | YES — the primary capacity. The site owns or operates the internet medium on which the advertising appears. |
| Advertising agency | “The person who prepares the advertisement at the advertiser’s request or acts as an intermediary for its publication on the advertiser’s behalf” (subpara. (l)) | DEPENDS. If you write the sponsored copy yourself, or act as intermediary between the influencer and the brand, you also fall within this definition. |
| Advertiser | “The person who has advertisements prepared … for the purpose of promoting the goods or services it produces or markets, and who has them published with its firm or brand appearing in them” (subpara. (m)) | AS A RULE NO; YES if you are promoting your own subscription, event or product. |
A news site does not have one fixed capacity; the capacity changes with the transaction, and more than one capacity may be held at once in the same piece of content. In content you prepare together with a brand’s influencer and publish on your own site, you hold the capacities of both advertising agency and media outlet. Article 77(12) of Law No. 6502 names all three capacities expressly.
The burden of proof is on the advertiser, the formal obligation on the medium
Article 61(6) of Law No. 6502 is clear: “Advertisers are obliged to prove the accuracy of the claims contained in their commercial advertising.” Articles 9(1) and 9(5) of the Regulation likewise attach that burden to the advertiser alone; it is also the advertiser who must submit the supporting documents to the supervisory authority. In a food supplement partnership, proving the product’s effect is not the news site’s job.
But it would be misleading to stop there. The identifiability obligation (Article 6) and the surreptitious advertising obligations (Articles 22-23) bind the medium directly, because the form of publication is within the medium’s control. Since Article 61(7) of Law No. 6502 says “Advertisers, advertising agencies and media outlets are obliged to comply with the provisions of this Article”, a news site cannot rely on a defence of “I did not write the content” under those two headings.
Three typical scenarios and your position in each
- Scenario 1 — You report on an influencer’s post. The commercial relationship is between the influencer and the brand; you are reporting news. Here you are within the right to inform in Article 23(1)(b); but if you give the brand disproportionate prominence, encourage purchase or include a campaign link, Article 23(1)(a) and (c) come into play.
- Scenario 2 — The brand pays you, the influencer produces the content, you publish it. This is commercial advertising. In your capacity as media outlet you are directly responsible for identifiability.
- Scenario 3 — You write the copy and you pay the influencer. In the same transaction you hold the capacities of both advertising agency and media outlet; Article 77(12) names both expressly.
In all three scenarios the copyright and personality-rights dimension of embedded social media posts must be assessed separately; whether an Instagram post may be embedded in a news item and the use of a social media photograph in a news item are separate topics outside the scope of this article.
What to do in practice
The following are not categorical rules derived from the legislation; they are operational suggestions aimed at meeting the outcome standard set by Article 6(1) and at bringing the guideline text into your process.
- Download a dated copy of the Advertising Board guideline in force and keep it in your advertising desk’s reference file; under Additional Article 1 that text is applied together with the Regulation.
- Disclose the commercial relationship in the content where the reader will see it before starting on the text. The placement has no counterpart fixed in the legislation; the yardstick is the perception of the average reader.
- Disclose partnerships in which no payment was made and only a product was supplied. Article 61(4) looks not for payment but for the purpose of advertising.
- Separate partnership content visually from the editorial template (Article 6(3)) and do not use a reporter’s byline.
- Put the commercial relationship into a contract; write in that the labelling decision remains with the publisher — otherwise the advertiser’s demand creates a problem under Article 22(2).
- In partnerships in travel, venue and product-trial format, do not include detailed contact information; that is an express prohibition in Article 23(2).
PARTNERSHIP CONTRACT — DISCLOSURE OF THE COMMERCIAL RELATIONSHIP CLAUSE
(An example. The legislation prescribes NO mandatory template.)
ARTICLE __ — ADVERTISING CHARACTER AND IDENTIFIABILITY
1. The parties accept that the content to be produced under this
contract constitutes COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING within the meaning of
Article 61 of Law No. 6502.
2. The content shall be published in a manner clearly distinguishable
from editorial content, in accordance with Article 6 of the
Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial
Practices. THE WORDING AND PLACEMENT OF THE LABEL SHALL BE
DETERMINED BY THE PUBLISHER; the advertiser may not interfere in
that determination (Regulation, Art. 22(2)).
3. The advertiser is obliged to prove the accuracy of the claims
contained in the content (Law 6502 Art. 61(6); Regulation
Art. 9(1)). If required by the supervisory authority, it shall
deliver the supporting documents to the publisher within ____ days.
4. The parties shall comply with the provisions of the guideline
prepared by the Advertising Board and published on the website of
the Ministry of Trade, which under ADDITIONAL ARTICLE 1 of the
Regulation is APPLIED TOGETHER WITH the Regulation. A copy of the
guideline text in force on the date of this contract is attached
as ANNEX-__.
5. Allocation between the parties, in their internal relationship, of
any administrative fine arising if the content is found
non-compliant by the supervisory authority:
______________________________________________
6. The publisher reserves the right to take the content down at any
time and without compensation (so that action can be taken within
the twenty-four-hour period under Law 6502 Art. 77(12)).The sanction for non-compliance
Under Article 77(12) of Law No. 6502, breaches of Article 61 attract suspension, correction by the same method, an administrative fine and, where deemed necessary, suspension as a precautionary measure for up to three months, imposed on advertisers, advertising agencies and media outlets. The internet is listed as a separate medium in subparagraph (e) of that paragraph. If the infringement occurred in the internet environment, the Advertising Board gives notice by electronic means; if the content is not removed within twenty-four hours despite that notice, it may order that access be blocked, and the decision is sent to the Access Providers Union.
For the formal side of labelling practice and why there is no font-size rule for the internet, see how an advertorial should be labelled; for the institutional operation of supervision, see whether the Advertising Board audits news sites.