Legal Compliance Checklist for Internet News Websites in Turkey

What this article covers, and what it does not

The scope is limited to two statutes: Press Law No. 5187 and Press Labour Act No. 5953 on the Regulation of Relations between Employees and Employers in the Press Profession. We deal with the institutional obligations a news website owes under those two laws.

In practice the distinction looks like this: when an access-blocking decision is issued in respect of one of your stories, that decision arises under Law No. 5651; but how you must publish the correction and reply text as a consequence of that decision arises under Article 14 of Law No. 5187. The two regimes are interwoven, but they are not the same regime.

What is an internet news website (Art. 2(m))?

The definition in Article 2(m), added by Law No. 7418, reads: "Internet news website: a periodical established and operated for the purpose of presenting written, visual or audio content in the nature of news or commentary at regular intervals in the internet environment."

The definition has four elements: being in the internet environment, publishing at regular intervals, content of the nature of news or commentary, and the site having been established and operated for that purpose. The same amendment added internet news websites to the definition of "periodical" in Article 2(c); for that reason every provision the statute lays down for periodicals applies to your site as well.

Visual and audio content falls within the definition too. In the same way, Law No. 7418 added "those who record or edit visual or audio content" to the definition of author in Article 2(ı); the members of your team who produce video and audio content also count as authors.

1. The declaration (Arts. 7 and 8)

For your site to be published as a periodical, a declaration must be filed with the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the place where the management is located (Article 7(1)). The declaration contains the name and nature of the publication, the publication interval, the place of management, the names and addresses of the owner, of the representative if any and of the responsible editor, the type of publication and the registered electronic notification address (Article 7(2)).

Where the declaration is incomplete or untrue, suspension of publication is not applied to internet news websites; the prosecutor's office applies to the criminal court of first instance for a determination that the status of an internet news website has not been acquired, and if the application is granted, the rights to official advertisements and announcements and the employees' press card rights cease to exist (Article 8). We set out in detail how the declaration is completed, which documents are attached and how the process runs in our sample periodical publication declaration and completion guide.

2. The imprint and the date stamp (Art. 4)

Under Article 4(3), the business address, trade name, e-mail address, contact telephone number and registered electronic notification address, together with the name and address of the hosting provider, must be kept under a "contact" heading that users can reach directly from the home page. Under Article 4(2), the place of management, the owner, the representative if any, the responsible editor and the type of publication must also be shown. Article 4(4) further requires that on every item of content the date of first publication and the dates of subsequent updates be stated on the content itself, in a manner that does not change each time it is accessed.

You will find a copy-and-paste imprint page template, the HTML block and an example of an article-page date stamp in our internet news website imprint template. The sanction for breach is in Article 15, and it falls on the responsible editor and on the person in authority to whom the responsible editor answers.

3. Content retention: the two-year archive (Art. 10)

The paragraph added to Article 10 by Article 6 of Law No. 7418 reads: "Content published on an internet news website shall be retained for a period of two years in a manner that ensures its accuracy and integrity, for delivery where necessary to the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office that requests it." The second paragraph added to the same article reads: "Where judicial authorities notify the internet news website in writing that the publication is the subject of an investigation or prosecution, it is mandatory to preserve the record of the publication that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution until notification that those proceedings have been concluded."

This is the most technical obligation on the list. The statute does not merely say "retain"; it requires that the retention ensure accuracy and integrity. Your archive must therefore hold the content as it stood at the moment of publication, in a form in which it can be shown not to have been altered afterwards. Deleting a story, taking it down or updating it does not extinguish the retention obligation — the removed version is itself content that must be retained for two years.

What is needed on the infrastructure side?

• Version records: the first published state of a story and each subsequent version are kept as separate records; nothing is overwritten
• Proof of integrity: a hash value is computed for each version and stored separately from the version itself
• Immutability: archive records are held in a store from which the application account cannot delete or modify them
• Time data: the moments of publication and update are recorded against server time, together with the time zone
• Attached files: a story's images, videos and audio files are part of the content; they are archived together with the text
• Deleted content: a story taken down is removed only from publication, not from the archive
• Access logging: who accessed the archive and when is logged — this demonstrates chain integrity when responding to a delivery request
• Delivery format: the export to be produced in response to a prosecutor's request (text + media + dates + hash value) is prepared in advance
• Backup: throughout the two-year retention period a copy of the archive is held on separate media

CONTENT RETENTION POLICY — minimum record schema (Law No. 5187, Art. 10)

content_archive
  content_id           : permanent identifier of the story
  version_no           : 1, 2, 3 ... (first publication = 1)
  version_type         : first_publication | update | taken_down
  headline             : the headline in that version
  body                 : the full text in that version
  author               : the author (Art. 2(ı))
  url                  : the address at which it was published
  publication_time     : ISO 8601, with time zone
  record_time          : the moment of writing to the archive
  hash_value           : hash computed over body + media list
  media_list           : identifiers and hashes of image / video / audio files
  takedown_time        : if withdrawn from publication
  judicial_notice      : none | present (with case number and date of notice)

RETENTION RULES
  * Records are never UPDATEd; only a new version is INSERTed.
  * Deletion does not run before 2 years have elapsed; where
    judicial_notice = present it does NOT run at all until notice is
    given that the proceedings have concluded.
  * Automated clean-up jobs exclude the archive table from their scope.

The second paragraph suspends the period. Where a judicial authority notifies you in writing that a publication is the subject of an investigation or prosecution, you must keep the record of that publication until you are notified that the proceedings have concluded, even if the two-year period has expired. Your archive schema must therefore carry a "judicial notice" flag, and automated deletion jobs must check that flag. On the server and storage side that hosts your records, a backup plan consistent with these periods must also be in place.

The sanction is in Article 17: "a printer who fails to comply with the delivery obligation under Article 10, and the responsible editor of an internet news website who fails to comply with the delivery and retention obligation, shall be punished with a heavy fine." The obligation falls directly on the responsible editor.

4. Correction and reply (Art. 14)

A person who has suffered harm sends, within two months of the date of publication, a correction and reply text containing no criminal element. The sentence added by Law No. 7418 sets a separate deadline for internet news websites: the responsible editor must publish that text, without any correction or addition, within one day at the latest of the date of receipt, on the page and in the columns where the relevant publication appears, with a URL link provided, in the same type size and in the same manner.

For newspapers this period is three days in the case of daily publications; for an internet news website it is one day. The practical consequence: the mailbox that will receive correction requests must be monitored daily, and there must be a process in the publishing workflow capable of going live within one day. Public holidays and weekends do not stop the clock.

The second special case is this: where a decision to block access to and/or remove the content of a publication is implemented, or where the internet news website removes the content of its own accord, the correction and reply text is published on the site where the relevant publication appeared for one week, the first twenty-four hours on the home page. In other words, having taken the story down yourself does not end the correction obligation; on the contrary, it results in the text being published on the home page.

If you do not publish it, or publish it contrary to Article 14(1), the person making the request may apply within fifteen days to the magistrate judge's office in criminal matters at their place of residence; the judge decides the request within three days without a hearing, and an expedited objection lies against the decision. The sanction for failing to comply with a final judicial decision is in Article 18; in addition, the judge orders that the text be published as an announcement in two internet news websites and in two newspapers with a circulation above one hundred thousand, at the expense of the owner of the publication. For the form of the request and the calculation of the period, see our sample correction and reply petition.

5. The chain of criminal liability (Art. 11)

Article 11(1): "An offence committed through printed works or internet news websites arises at the moment of publication." The moment the offence arises is the moment the content is published. Under Article 11(2), as a rule the author is liable.

Article 11(3) sets up the chain: in periodicals, where the author is unknown, lacked criminal capacity at the time of publication, cannot be tried in Turkey because they are abroad, or where the penalty to be imposed would not affect a penalty to which the author has been sentenced by a final judgment for another offence, liability falls on the responsible editor and on the person in authority to whom the responsible editor answers, such as the publishing director, editor-in-chief, editor or press adviser. If the work was published despite the objection of the responsible editor and of the person in authority to whom they answer, liability rests with the person who caused it to be published.

6. Civil liability (Art. 13)

Article 13(1): for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage arising from acts committed through printed works or internet news websites, in periodicals the author, the owner of the publication and, where there is one, the representative are jointly and severally liable. That is the difference from criminal liability: in damages there is no chain but joint liability.

Article 13(2) broadens the scope: the provision also applies to natural or legal persons who are the owner of the publication, the holder of the trade mark or licence, the lessor, the operator, or who publish it in any capacity or act as a publisher. Where the legal person is a company, the chairman of the board in joint-stock companies and the most senior manager in other companies is jointly and severally liable together with the company.

Article 13(3) governs transfers: where, after the act giving rise to the damage was committed, the publication is transferred, merged with another publication or changes hands, the transferee, the merging party and those acting as owner of the publication, together with the chairman of the board in joint-stock companies and the senior manager in other companies, are also liable. If you are buying a news website, liability in damages arising from content published before the acquisition binds you too; carry out an archive review during transfer negotiations.

7. The right to protect news sources (Art. 12)

Article 12: "The owner of a periodical, the responsible editor and the author may not be compelled to disclose any source of news, including information and documents, or to give evidence on the matter." This is not an obligation but a right of yours — and because internet news websites count as periodicals, you hold that right too.

The right also has a technical face: what Article 10 requires you to archive is published content, not a reporter's correspondence with sources. When designing your archive system, keep those two data sets apart; do not mix unpublished source traffic into the same store as the publication archive.

8. The limitation period for proceedings (Art. 26)

Article 26(1) lays down a condition of prosecution: criminal proceedings concerning offences committed through printed works or internet news websites, or the other offences provided for in this Law, must be brought within four months in the case of daily periodicals and internet news websites, and within six months in the case of other printed works.

Article 26(2) fixes the starting point: for printed works these periods run from the date of deposit with the prosecutor's office, and for internet news websites from the date on which the criminal complaint concerning the item was made. These periods may not exceed the periods in the article of the Turkish Penal Code on limitation of prosecution. When you learn of a criminal complaint concerning your site, be aware that the four-month clock has started running.

9. Compliance with Law No. 5953: written contracts and insured employment

Article 1 of Law No. 5953, which defines that statute's scope, was amended by Law No. 7418 so as to include internet news websites. The consequence is that employees carrying out intellectual and artistic work at your news website count as journalists, and their employment relationship is therefore subject to the regime of Law No. 5953 rather than to Labour Law No. 4857.

Article 4 of Law No. 5953 makes a written contract unconditionally mandatory and requires the contract to state the nature of the work, the amount of remuneration and the journalist's length of service; any change in the nature of the work or in remuneration must also be recorded in the contract. The administrative fine for failing to conclude a written contract is set out in Article 26(a). We deal with the text of the contract and its mandatory clauses in our Law No. 5953-compliant journalist employment contract template.

Compliance with Law No. 5953 is also tied to the press card. Additional Article 3(f) of Law No. 5187 requires, for a press card application, that a contract compliant with Law No. 5953 has been concluded and that the applicant has worked without a break of more than one month from the date of leaving a job, save for reasons of force majeure. In other words, your staff's ability to obtain press cards depends on your contracts complying with the regime of Law No. 5953. On the effect of headcount on the quota, see our press card quota calculation.

Do not overlook the connection here: if a status determination is made under Article 8, the employees' press card rights fall away in any event. Declaration compliance, imprint compliance and personnel compliance are not separate mechanisms but interlocking links.

10. The transitional provision (Provisional Article 4)

Provisional Article 4(1), added by Law No. 7418, gave internet news websites operating before the entry into force of that article three months to comply with the obligations in the statute. That period expired at the end of 2022; there is no deferred obligation today. Provisional Article 4(2) provides that press cards duly issued earlier remain valid, provided their holders satisfy the conditions in Additional Article 3.

A tick-box compliance checklist

Work through the list below item by item with your editorial board. Each item ends with the article number on which it rests.

• The declaration has been filed with the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the place where the management is located, and the receipt is on file — Law No. 5187, Art. 7
• The registered electronic notification address is stated in the declaration — Art. 7(2)
• A responsible editor has been appointed and the six conditions in Art. 5(2) have been verified by documentation — Art. 5
• Where the owner of the publication is a legal person, a representative has been designated and the conditions in Art. 5(2) have been applied to them as well — Art. 6(2)
• There is an internal process for notifying changes to the content of the declaration within two weeks — Art. 8(2)
• There is a "Contact" page reachable directly from the home page — Art. 4(3)
• The imprint states the business address, trade name, e-mail, telephone, registered electronic notification address, and the name and address of the hosting provider — Art. 4(3)
• The imprint states the place of management, the owner, the representative if any, the responsible editor and the type of publication — Art. 4(2)
• Every item of content shows the date of first publication and the update dates on the content itself, in a way that does not change when the page is refreshed — Art. 4(4)
• All published content is retained for two years in a manner ensuring its accuracy and integrity — Art. 10
• Versions that have been taken down or updated are also kept in the archive and are not overwritten — Art. 10
• The export format for delivery on a prosecutor's request is ready — Art. 10
• There is a flag and a process for retaining the relevant publication record indefinitely upon written notice from a judicial authority — Art. 10
• The address to which correction and reply texts will be sent is stated in the imprint and is monitored daily — Arts. 4(3), 14
• The correction and reply text can be published within one day, with a URL link provided, in the same type size and manner — Art. 14(1)
• It is understood that, in the event of content removal or access blocking, the text must be published for one week with the first 24 hours on the home page — Art. 14(1)
• A by-line policy for authors has been settled and the chain of liability has been explained to the team — Art. 11
• The joint and several liability of the chairman of the board in joint-stock companies, and of the most senior manager in other companies, is understood — Art. 13(2)
• In the event of a transfer or merger of the site, liability arising from past content has been assessed — Art. 13(3)
• Correspondence with news sources is kept separate from the publication archive — Arts. 10, 12
• It is understood that the four-month period for bringing proceedings runs from a criminal complaint — Art. 26
• Written contracts compliant with Law No. 5953 have been concluded with all employees carrying out intellectual and artistic work — Law No. 5953, Art. 4
• Continuous employment without a break, within the scope of Law No. 5953, is monitored for employees who will apply for a press card — Law No. 5187, Additional Art. 3(f)
• Separate legal support is being obtained for obligations under Law No. 5651 and the Turkish Penal Code — legislation outside this scope

Some items on this list are one-off (the declaration, setting up the imprint), while others are continuously running processes (content retention, publishing corrections, renewing contracts). Put the continuous ones on a calendar; the most frequently encountered non-compliance arises from an imprint and an archive that were set up once and never updated.