Court decision · 26 December 2019
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ve Diğerleri Başvurusu
Anayasa Mahkemesi (Genel Kurul), B. No: 2017/22355, 26/12/2019 · Anayasa Mahkemesi (Constitutional Court of Türkiye)
What it means for your code
UGC platforms serving Türkiye should be able to geo-restrict individual URLs quickly in response to 5651 orders, rather than risk whole-site blocking.
What happened
Access to the whole of Wikipedia was blocked in Türkiye under Law No. 5651 on account of two articles.
What was decided
Blocking access to an entire website for an indefinite period on the basis of specific content violated freedom of expression; less restrictive measures targeting the specific content had to be considered.
The legal test applied
- Access-blocking must be necessary and proportionate; blocking an entire site indefinitely because of specific content is disproportionate
What would have changed the outcome
- URL-level removal or restriction of the specific content
Source: Anayasa Mahkemesi (Constitutional Court of Türkiye), anayasa.gov.tr. Summary and analysis by Lawpatch. Risk analysis, not legal advice; the law may have moved on since this decision.