Turkish lawmakers approved a bill on October 13 purportedly meant to combat fake news and disinformation, but local civil society organizations describe the bill as an underhanded censorship or disinformation bill which will be used to squash dissent and criticism. Critics of the bill say the 40-article legislation passed by Turkey's parliament is a threat to freedom of speech and could have disastrous consequences ahead of Turkey's 2023 election. There are a number of concerning new restrictions in the bill — mandatory content removal, violations of user privacy, further platform regulation measures, and more — though one of the most worrying articles is Article 29, according to which “anyone publicly distributing false information on Turkey’s domestic and external security, public order and welfare could face between one and three years in jail for instigating concern, fear and panic in society, faces imprisonment from one and up to three years.” The new restrictions went into effect on October 18. In response to the bill, an international coalition of 22 press freedom organizations said the bill, “with its vaguely-formulated definition of disinformation and ‘intent’, overseen by Turkey’s highly politicized judiciary, will put millions of internet users at risk of criminal sanction and could lead to blanket censorship and self-censorship in the run up to the 2023 elections.” Turkey is scheduled to hold a general election in June 2023. The bill also comes on the heels of a recent revelation about the government's Bilgi Teknolojileri ve İletişim Kurumu (the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK) collecting private user data in a massive breach of user privacy since 2021. One MP, Onursal Adiguzel, from the opposition Republican People (CH) party, described the findings as “the biggest tapping scandal in the history of the Republic.” The bill was proposed by the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party and its ally, the Nationalist Movement (MH) Party members, and has been in the works since last year. The two parties claim the bill is similar to existing legislation in Europe, such as the German NetzDG, but critics disagree. It has been criticized for its opaque legal definitions, and for weaponizing unclear terms such as disinformation, fake news, baseless information, distorted disinformation, security, public order, and public peace. In an interview with The Guardian, Emre Kizilkaya, head of the International Press Institute's Turkey branch, said the bill “criminalizes what the authorities call disinformation without defining what that actually means. A judge will decide how to define disinformation and intent, which really gives arbitrary powers to the government to criticize journalism.” The fierce opposition to the bill was also voiced by opposition political party members. Ahead of the bill's adoption, one member of the parliament, Burak Erbay, smashed his phone with a hammer during his speech at the parliament. “Break your phones like this, you will not need to use it,” Erbay said ahead of the vote. On October 14, another lawmaker said Turks may be heading into polls come election month without Twitter, Facebook, or WhatsApp. “This censorship law allows the state to shut down Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp,” said MP Garo Paylan referring to the bill authorizing prosecutors and the BTK to shut down platforms if they do not comply with government requests to provide data on users. The new social media censorship law adopted by the Turkish parliament marks the launch -by president Erdogan- of Turkey's next election season. The 2023 polls will be Turkey's most unfair vote since the country's first free and fair elections in 1950 — Soner Cagaptay (@SonerCagaptay) October 14, 2022 Paylan called on the Constitutional Court to reverse the bill. “Yesterday the parliament adopted the disinformation bill. I am ashamed of this as a member of the Turkish Grand National Assembly […] The parliament could not stop the bill, but the Constitutional Court can. If there are still judges at the Constitutional Court, they must stop this bill that is clearly against the Constitution,” said Paylan. On October 18, the main opposition People's Republic (CH) Party officially requested the Constitutional Court overturn the bill, specifically Article 29. The bill does not only concern journalists. Its vague definitions may also hold users accountable for any post they share. “Any social media platform user will be held liable within the premises of this law for any post/tweet/share,” explained Emre Ilkan Saklica, the head of editorial at the fact-checking platform Teyit.org in an interview with DW Turkish. Scientists and independent economists may also face consequences over their projections and analysis.