Vowing to protect the nation’s moral welfare, the Radio and Television Supreme Council imposes content takedowns, temporary bans and financial sanctions in line with the Turkish authorities’ ongoing crackdown on critical TV channels and websites.
Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council, RTUK, the state regulatory agency for TV and radio broadcasts as well as digital platforms, has increasingly moved beyond its formal mandate and become the most effective instruments for suppressing critical journalism across both traditional and digital media, experts are warning.
In 2025, the scale and consistency of regulatory sanctions revealed a system in which oversight has been transformed into pressure, and regulation into punishment, media freedom advocates told BIRN.
Fines, broadcast bans, programme suspensions, licensing ultimatums and content takedowns have not only targeted critical television channels but have also followed critical journalism into the digital sphere, where many outlets had sought refuge.
In 2025, according to the RTUK’s annual report, the regulator issued 99 sanctions, imposing 146.7 million Turkish lira [some 30 million euros] in administrative fines, alongside programme suspensions and temporary broadcast bans.
A disproportionate share of these measures targeted news and political commentary. Of the total sanctions, 54 concerned news and discussion programmes, with 45 imposed on just three critical broadcasters: Sozcu TV, Halk TV and Tele 1.
RTUK president Ebubekir Sahin has described RTUK as the defender of young people and traditional values in Turkey.
“RTUK has taken on the role of a regulatory shield in protecting children, youth and the family structure, and our approach is clear: freedom and responsibility must walk side by side,” Sahin said on September 16.
But media researcher Orhan Sener Deliormanli said that RTUK is being used as part of a range of pressure mechanisms by the authorities against media who do not echo their views.
“In democracies and reasonably functioning countries, this structure should operate as a regulatory body. Unfortunately, in Turkey it has turned into a harassment tool against critical and independent media as well as internet [outlets],” Sener Deliormanli told BIRN.
The penalties imposed have gone beyond financial sanctions. TV channels have faced multi-day broadcast blackouts, programme cancellations and repeat sanctions on the same shows.
‘No longer a safe haven’
RTUK’s governing board members are elected by parliament, with seats allocated in proportion to the political parties’ representation in the legislature. This means the ruling party automatically has a majority on the RTUK board. The RTUK’s head is elected from among the board members, typically reflecting the majority bloc in parliament rather than an independent selection process.
As a result, critics – who include opposition members of RTUK’s board – argue that its structure does not allow for institutional independence and means regulatory decisions inevitably align closely with the priorities of the government.
Tuncay Keser, an RTUK board member from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP, argues that RTUK’s sanctions and orders for online outlets to obtain broadcast-style licences have been “unlawful, disproportionate, and constitute a serious attack on freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
“Journalism is not a public relations activity. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press encompass not only views that please the majority, but also publications that are disturbing and critical of those in political power. However, it is not possible to say that RTUK has acted impartially and fairly during this process,” Keser told T24 in an interview.
Thanks to a 2019 regulation that placed Turkish-language internet broadcasting under its authority, RTUK has a mandate to license, sanction and restrict online platforms, effectively extending broadcast-style oversight to digital publishers and on-demand services.
In 2025, RTUK ordered the removal of 10 items from the catalogues of digital platforms including Netflix, Prime Video, MUBI, HBO Max, Disney XD, and Spotify.
RTUK’s activities reflect how the media landscape has changed. “Conventional and digital broadcasting are now intertwined. Television channels exist both on air and on social media,” Sener Deliormanli noted. “The government no longer makes a distinction. In the past, digital media was seen as the last safe haven. That is no longer the case.”
The regulator’s activities are happening amid wider efforts to exert control over the online sphere in Turkey. In the first seven months of 2025, thousands of news articles, social media posts and accounts were blocked on the basis of decisions issued by Turkish courts and administrative authorities. According to media freedom group Free Web Turkey’s 2025 Internet Censorship Report, access restriction decisions were issued for at least a total of 1,306 items, while 3,330 URLs were blocked. Access restrictions were not only imposed by court rulings, but also by regulatory authorities including RTUK, the report said.
‘Protection of the family’
In 2025, RTUK deployed its “regulatory shield” in line with the government’s “Family Year” policy – a public morality campaign that places the family at the centre of Turkey’s social, cultural and demographic agenda, framing it as a core pillar of national identity and social stability in line with the values of Turkey’s Islamist ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP.
RTUK has fined major streaming platforms, including Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime Video, HBO Max and Mubi, and ordered the removal of specific films and series. The regulator justified these actions by claiming the content “promoted homosexuality”, “violated public morality”, or was “against family values”. Programmes and films that were targeted included Cobalt Blue, Those About to Die, Looking: The Movie, All of Us Strangers, and Benedetta.
Most recently, the HBO Max series Jasmine, which tells the story of a Turkish woman sex worker, was banned in Turkey by RTUK through a formal decision announced on December 18. The regulator imposed an administrative fine and ordered the show removed from local streaming catalogues on grounds that it violated principles on “national and moral values, general morality, and the protection of the family”.
Gurkan Ozturan, rights group Freedom House’s ‘Freedom on the Net’ rapporteur for Turkey, said that in 2025, the country’s digital rights and media freedom are in crisis, with RTUK “acting less as a regulator and more as a punitive apparatus.
“Under the government’s Family Year discourse, RTUK invoked vague notions of public morality to justify arbitrary fines and broadcast bans, primarily targeting independent and opposition-leaning networks,” Ozturan told BIRN.
He said that these measures have had a chilling effect on other outlets. “Over 30 million euros in fines and several ten-day broadcast bans were issued, prompting widespread self-censorship and undermining editorial independence,” he argued.
Following RTUK’s repeated sanctions on independent media, the Turkish Journalists’ Association, TGC, one of the oldest press freedom groups in the country, called for a return to impartiality.
“RTUK must be able to maintain equal distance from all media outlets, act impartially in its decisions, and respect the constitution as well as freedom of the press and freedom of expression,” TGC said in a written statement in September.
Exceeding its mandate?
Ozturan argued that the regulator’s approach is legally inconsistent. “Online streaming services rarely qualify as television networks under RTUK law, yet they were pressured to obtain licences as if they were 24-hour scheduled broadcasters,” he said.
Online journalistic outlets were treated in the same way. In 2025, RTUK ordered BirGun TV, Cumhuriyet TV, Flu TV, and journalist Fatih Altayli’s YouTube channel to obtain broadcasting licences within 72 hours, threatening access bans for non-compliance. Courts rejected legal challenges to this approach, leaving the practice intact.
Keser condemned the licensing demands, arguing that “RTUK does not have authority over all internet publications”. He argued that it was aimed at silencing critical voices online. “Independent journalism and pluralism on the internet are being directly targeted,” he warned.
RTUK president Ebubekir Sahin threatened conventional and online media several times in 2025.
In March, when nationwide protests were held following the arrest of Istanbul mayor and CHP presidential candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, Sahin warned that broadcasters could be taken off air.
“As the Radio and Television Supreme Council, it is hereby emphatically and repeatedly announced that sanctions will be imposed – including long-term broadcast suspensions and, ultimately, licence revocations – against broadcasters that operate outside the law,” Sahin announced.
Following his statement, many television channels and digital platforms ended their live broadcasts from protest sites such as Sarachane and Caglayan squares in Istanbul and switched to other programming.
Baris Altintas, co-chair of the Media and Law Studies Association, a Turkish civil rights group that campaigns for media and internet freedoms, noted that digital media have been deeply affected by RTUK’s changing strategy.
“RTUK has expanded its control through licensing obligations and access-blocking threats,” Altintas said. “YouTube channels, podcasts and online news platforms are being subjected to the same regime as television broadcasters, without transparent or predictable criteria.”
She argued that the penalties and sanctions imposed by RTUK in 2025 represented an escalation both in scale and intent.
“The suspension of news programmes, programme closures, and high administrative fines go beyond content regulation and amount to direct interference in editorial lines,” she said. “This does not only target media institutions; it directly targets society’s right to receive information.”
Source: BalkanInsight
