Turkey's data privacy review of children's platforms highlights global digital governance gaps and corporate accountability

Turkey's review of children's data-processing practices is not an isolated incident but part of a broader systemic failure in digital governance, where profit-driven tech corporations exploit regulatory gaps to extract data from vulnerable populations.

This issue is rooted in historical patterns of colonial extraction and is exacerbated by the dominance of Western tech giants in shaping global digital policies. Indigenous digital sovereignty movements and non-Western governance models offer alternative frameworks that prioritize cultural integrity and collective benefit, challenging the extractive practices of Silicon Valley. However, these perspectives are often marginalized in mainstream debates, which remain dominated by corporate and state actors. To address this, international cooperation is needed to enforce ethical AI and data privacy standards, while also centering marginalized voices and historical reparations in policy discussions. Without such systemic changes, the current trajectory of data exploitation will continue to harm children and other vulnerable groups, reinforcing existing power imbalances in the digital age.