Illustration: Jakub Zerdzicki/Unsplash.

Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council, RTUK, the regulatory government agency for TV and radio broadcasts, fined several digital streaming platforms for violating moral and family values and obscenity on Thursday.

The fined platforms include Netflix, Prime Video, MUBI, Disney XD and HBO Max.

“RTUK imposed an administrative fine amounting to 3 per cent [of their monthly income] along with a catalogue removal penalty,” Tuncay Keser, a RTUK board member from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP announced.

“The sanctions were issued on the grounds that the platforms violated the provisions stating that ‘Broadcasts cannot be contrary to the national and moral values of society, general morality, and the principle of protecting the family’ and ‘cannot be obscene’,” Keser said.

RTUK cited the films Cobalt Blue on Netflix, Those About to Die on Prime Video, Benedetta on MUBI, All of Us Strangers on Disney XD, and Looking: The Movie on HBO MAX as the reason for the sanctions. These films will now have to be removed from the digital platforms’ catalogue in Turkey.

Keser criticised the development. “Claiming to ‘protect society’ through fictional productions with content ratings on subscribed platforms, which adults access by paying, is a serious contradiction and a double standard,” Keser said.

The platforms have not yet reacted to the announced fines. However, in earlier instances, they have respected RTUK decisions and paid the fines.

In 2023, RTUK fined Netflix and Amazon Prime, among others, for allegedly promoting homosexuality and for undermining Turkish “moral values”.

Earlier in 2023, the RTUK warned streaming platforms to respect “the values of the Turkish family, national and moral values and the indivisible integrity of Turkey”.

In August 2019, a regulation change in Turkey gave the RTUK authority to oversee digital streaming platforms, in a move designed to increase government control. Following this change, it imposed several fines on digital platforms in parallel with other government moves to increase pressure and censorship of media and the internet.

Turkey’s state-led Anadolu Agency reported that the latest fines were imposed as part of the 2025 Family Year Policy of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In January 2025, President Erdogan announced that his government had chosen 2025 as a year to stress protection and support for families.