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The Parliamentary Department of Media, Publications and Public Relations has released a statement regarding the reason why Netflix cannot be accessed by using the Internet service providers of the Parliament.
The statement has underlined that the restriction in question is not related to the recent debates about social media or a possible legislation to be enacted within this context. As the reason for the restriction, the department has referred to the fact that "series-film platforms affect the Internet capacity of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM)."
It was detected that Netflix and similar other platforms were frequently used within working hours, the department has said in a statement and added that, in March 2020, a decision was taken to restrict the administrative personnel from accessing the such websites.
According to the department, in working to enhance the capacity of the Parliament's Internet later on, it was understood that such platforms were still frequently used, which was affecting the Internet capacity to a considerable extent. That being the case, the restriction is now applied all across the Parliament as of June 26, the department has informed.
The statement has reiterated that various restrictions had already been in place for film-series platforms since 2019, noting that it does not have anything to do with the recent debates about a possible countrywide control on social media, which has recently been brought up by President and ruling Justice Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
What did Erdoğan say?
On July 1, at a meeting with his party's provincial chairs, Erdoğan said that social media should be either banned or controlled and regulated.
Erdoğan's remarks came after insulting messages were sent to Finance and Treasury Minister and his son-in-law Berat Albayrak when he announced with a tweet that he and Esra Albayrak had a new child.
Defining the tweets as "immoral," "dishonorable" and "inhuman," President Erdoğan went on to say, "We want this kind of media to be completely removed, controlled." "We'll never stop chasing these low-lives who attack a family and the values they think they represent through a baby who just opened its eyes to the world," he said and added:
"Now do you understand why we are against social medias such as YouTube, Twitter, Netflix? To eliminate these immoralities. Social media should be organized. We want these environments to be regulated. Turkey is not a banana republic. We will bring our proposal on this issue to the parliament. When it is complete, we will enable every kind of method.
"As soon as we bring them to our parliament, we want our parliament to check the complete removal of such social media channels." (HA/SD)
