Turkey Digital Content Consensus proposed to protect local media

Okan Müderrisoğlu has proposed the ‘Turkey Digital Content Consensus’ to address the economic challenges facing domestic media. The initiative seeks to establish a legal framework to ensure the sustainability of local journalism and content creation in the face of rapid shifts in the digital landscape.

The proposal highlights a cycle where local media produces news, which is then indexed by search engines and distributed via social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and X. While these platforms utilize original content to drive traffic and user engagement, the resulting advertising revenue is largely captured by the social media networks rather than the original creators.

Müderrisoğlu argues that social media monopolies benefit from taking content without payment, controlling traffic through opaque algorithms, and selling targeted advertising based on user data. The proposed consensus aims to ensure that a license fee is paid when local news, photos, or videos are used in digital commercial services, helping to redistribute advertising revenue back to the primary content producers.