- summary
- Law No. 7418 — commonly known as the 'disinformation law' — amended the Press Law No. 5187 and added Article 217/A to the Turkish Penal Code, criminalizing 'publicly disseminating misleading information' with imprisonment of 1 to 3 years (aggravated to 1.5 to 4.5 years if committed anonymously or through media organizations). Within weeks, a journalist was arrested for reporting on MIT (Turkish intelligence) activities. Internet news sites were brought under press law obligations for the first time. The law's deliberately vague 'misleading information' standard gave prosecutors broad discretion. TUSEV qualitative research confirmed direct chilling effect on civil society communications, with organizations self-censoring social media content.
- country
- Turkey
- date text
- 18/10/2022
- entities
- Grand National Assembly; Prosecution; AKP parliamentary majority
- entity type
- Legislature; Judiciary
- id
- 1127
- name
- Grand National Assembly; Prosecution; AKP parliamentary majority
- role
- actor
- Journalists; civil society communicators; social media users; online news organizations
- entity type
- Media; Individual; CSO
- id
- 1128
- name
- Journalists; civil society communicators; social media users; online news organizations
- role
- target
- Grand National Assembly; Prosecution; AKP parliamentary majority
- sources
- citation
- TUSEV CSO Monitoring Matrix Turkey 2022-2023; Law No. 7418 (18 October 2022); RSF Press Freedom Index 2023
- tactics
- Legislative Operationalization
- label
- Legislative Operationalization
- code
- TC-18
- needs review
- false
- role
- primary
- Media Distribution Exclusion
- label
- Media Distribution Exclusion
- code
- TC-41
- needs review
- false
- role
- secondary
- Legislative Operationalization
- narratives
- Sovereignty Protection / State Security Infrastructure
- label
- Sovereignty Protection / State Security Infrastructure
- code
- NF-10
- needs review
- false
- role
- primary
- Destabilization Agent
- label
- Destabilization Agent
- code
- NF-06
- needs review
- false
- role
- secondary
- Sovereignty Protection / State Security Infrastructure
- campaign ids
- campaign phase
- Phase 2: Institutionalization of Mechanism
- channels
- BTK
- Courts
- Parliament
- Prosecution
- RTÜK
- civic response
- RSF, CPJ, IPI, Article 19 issued condemnations; opposition CHP challenged constitutionality at Constitutional Court; civil society communications organizations documented self-censorship; EU Progress Report 2022 cited law as major setback
- consequence category
- Legislative Censorship; Criminalisation of Expression; Chilling Effect; Platform Capture
- created at
- 2026-09-24T17:50:55.358311+00:00
- date precision
- day
- escalation
- 5
- harm track
- Track 2 — Information Environment
- id
- TUR-040
- institutional consequence
- Criminal liability for undefined 'misleading information' created for all online communicators; internet news sites subject to press law for first time; journalist arrested within weeks of enactment; TUSEV documented CSO self-censorship in communications; Turkey ranked 165th/180 on RSF Press Freedom Index 2023
- notes
- Second stage of information criminalisation campaign (TUR-CAMP-007); completes legislative framework alongside Social Media Law 7253 (TUR-032); 953,415 websites blocked by end 2023 per TUSEV data
- occurred on
- 2022-10-18
- trigger type
- TR-08: Proactive / Ambient
- updated at
- 2026-09-24T17:50:55.358311+00:00
- version
- 1
The public research collection