The Turkish Broadcasting Authority (RTÜK) has blocked the websites of the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) and those of U.S. international radio station Voice of America (VOA) for not applying for the licenses it requests.
DW confirmed that access was blocked to all of its 32 different language sites as of Thursday evening. VOA also confirmed Turkey’s media regulator had blocked access.
“Access to the websites of DW Turkish and VOA Turkish from Turkey has been blocked on the grounds that no license application has been made to RTÜK,” DW wrote on Twitter Thursday.
Online content providers are required to obtain a fresh license to continue broadcasting in the country and comply with the RTÜK guideline, according to Turkey’s new regulation.
The legislation in August 2019 gives RTÜK the authority to regulate online radio, television and on-demand broadcasting in Turkey.
Online streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime Video obtained licenses in late 2020 by complying with new RTÜK online broadcasting rules.
