Indonesia on Saturday started implementing a brand new authorities regulation accepted earlier this month that bans kids youthful than 16 from entry to digital platforms that might expose them to pornography, cyberbullying, on-line scams and dependancy.
With the transfer, Indonesia grew to become the primary nation in Southeast Asia to ban kids from having accounts on YouTube, TikTok, Fb, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Stay and Roblox. It follows measures that Australia took final 12 months in a world-first social media ban for youngsters as a part of a push for households to take again energy from tech giants and shield their teenagers.
Indonesia has stated that the implementation of the restrictions can be carried out step by step, till all platforms adjust to the measure.
“The federal government has instructed all digital platforms working in Indonesia to right away convey their merchandise, options and companies into compliance with relevant laws. There might be no compromise on compliance, and each enterprise entity working in Indonesia is required to adjust to Indonesian regulation,” Indonesia’s Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid stated on Friday night.
In asserting the brand new regulation earlier in March, she stated that this regulation would apply to round 70 million kids in Indonesia — a rustic with a inhabitants of about 280 million.
Hafid stated high-risk digital platforms are recognized by components resembling how straightforward it’s for youngsters to change into uncovered to strangers, potential predators and dangerous content material typically, in addition to the degrees of threat of exploitation and information safety scams.
However she acknowledged that implementing the brand new regulation — even step by step as deliberate — might be tough. Getting digital platforms to conform after which making them report deactivations of under-16 accounts is tough.
“That is definitely a activity. However we should take steps to avoid wasting our youngsters,” Hafid stated. “It’s not straightforward. Nonetheless, we should see it via.”
Maura Munthe, a 13-year-old who spends roughly 4 hours a day on her cellphone on social media, together with taking part in video games on Roblox along with her pals, stated she feels “form of 50-50” in regards to the new authorities coverage however largely agrees with it.
Her friends at school, she says, fear they are going to miss out on all of the enjoyable and leisure they now have entry to.
“There are all the time different video games on my cellphone, not solely the net ones,” she stated. “I’ll seemingly play extra video games alone or simply hang around with my pals.”
Munthe’s mom, Leni Sinuraya, 47, stated she has for years trusted her daughter to make use of her cellphone correctly, each when learning and when taking part in on-line video games. Nonetheless, she sees the federal government’s transfer pretty much as good for all kids in Indonesia.
Mother and father, she says, have misplaced management — and social media platforms have taken over.
“These days, once we see children sitting in a restaurant, they’ve a cellphone proper in entrance of them. It’s clear that they’re addicted,” Sinuraya stated. “They gained’t eat except they’re given a cellphone, and so they throw a tantrum in the event that they aren’t.”
“Mealtime is meant to be a time for us to talk with the folks round us,” she added.
Based mostly in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, Diena Haryana based Semai Jiwa Amini basis — also called SEJIWA, a nonprofit that works on on-line baby security and safety.
In accordance with Haryana, research have proven that kids’s use of social media can influence their psychological well being and set off nervousness and melancholy.
However, she says, digital platforms additionally supply benefits and open up a complete realm of studying. Her basis has tried to get dad and mom and communities to work collectively on offering steerage and supervision for youngsters within the on-line world.
“We additionally must keep in mind that they should study to make use of this digital expertise on the proper time, on the proper age, and with the fitting steerage as effectively,” she stated.
Haryana stated the consequences of limiting entry to social media and digital platforms to kids below 16 will solely be seen as soon as the measure is in place — she predicted each complaints from kids and confusion amongst dad and mom.
Mother and father and colleges are anticipated to offer kids with options on the way to study in the true world — not the digital one, she stated.
“In fact, this takes time to get used to, which is why dad and mom and colleges must encourage kids to have interaction with the true world and make it enjoyable for them,” Haryana added. “And there’s a lot in the true world for youngsters to discover.”
To this point, few platforms have reacted to Indonesia’s new regulation.
Elon Musk’s X on its Indonesia On-line Security Data web page offers 16 because the minimal age required for customers within the nation. “It’s not our alternative – it’s what Indonesian regulation requires,” the web page says.
Google-owned YouTube stated it helps the Indonesian authorities’s effort to create an efficient, risk-based framework that addresses on-line harms whereas preserving entry to info and digital alternative.
“We’re prepared to have interaction below the regulation’s self-assessment strategy to reveal our long-standing security rigor,” it stated.
TikTok on its newsroom web page stated that it’ll take the mandatory steps according to regulatory expectations and proceed to strengthen the safeguards, in addition to maintain Indonesian neighborhood within the platform knowledgeable as additional steerage turns into accessible.
“We are going to proceed to have interaction constructively with The Communication and Digital Affairs Ministry within the self-assessment course of, and count on that the regulation might be utilized pretty and persistently throughout all social platforms,” it stated.
Restrictions on social media entry for youngsters below 16 first started in December in Australia, the place social media firms revoked entry to about 4.7 million accounts recognized as belonging to kids.
Another international locations — together with Spain, France and the UK — are additionally taking or contemplating measures to limit kids’s entry to social media amid rising concern that they’re being harmed by publicity to unregulated social media content material.
Printed – March 30, 2026 09:57 am IST