The Turkish parliament has passed a bill that tightens government control over social media, state-controlled news agency Anadolu reports.

The controversial law creates unrest among organizations that strive for freedom of expression.

The new legislation requires major social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook to comply with Turkish court requests to withdraw certain content.

If they do not comply with the request to delete messages, a hefty fine awaits them. The law also obliges the social networking sites to have a representative in Turkey.

According to the AKP party, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Muslim conservative party that has been in power for years, the law serves to put an end to online insults.

President Erdogan is regularly under attack for the authoritarian style of government he is credited with.

At the beginning of July, he called for “putting things right” on social media after his daughter and son-in-law were flouted at insults on the worldwide web.