Turkish ‘disinformation law’ will make it a crime to spread ‘fake news’

A “disinformation law” that, if passed, would impose up to three-year jail sentences for the spread of “fake news” or “disinformation,” has been sitting in Turkish parliament for years.

While the bill itself makes no attempt to define fake news or false information, independent journalists in the country speculate the so-called “disinformation” law may be a euphemism. In fact, the law could be a way of securing authoritarian control in the country by giving outsized power to censor and restrict information flow to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. Fact-checkers at...