By Theodore Shoebat

The government of Turkey wants to put severe restrictions on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, such as providing the government with the data of Turkish citizens under the threat of $1.5 million fines. A we read in a report from CNN:

Turkey’s parliament passed a bill on Wednesday that regulates social media content in what is being criticized by rights groups as “damaging” to freedom of expression. Here’s what it all means.

The bill imposes comprehensive regulations on social media, requiring foreign social media companies with over 1 million users — such as Twitter and Facebook — to have a representative in the country. Under the new law, social media providers will be required to store domestic user data in Turkey, imposing fines of up to $1.5 million, as well as bandwidth restrictions and advertising bans, for failure to comply.

The government defends the bill as an effort to protect approximately 55 million users in Turkey from disinformation. “The bill was prepared with an innovative approach to protect users as opposed to curtailing them,” Ismail Cesur, a presidential adviser said in a tweet.