JAKARTA: The Communications and Digital Ministry is pushing Meta to fully comply with the country’s Child Protection in Digital Space Regulation, known as PP TUNAS, following a landmark ruling in the United States that found the company’s child safety measures lacking.
Alexander Sabar, the ministry’s director general for digital oversight, said earlier this week that US tech giant Meta has already submitted written commitments to comply with the PP TUNAS, which aims to protect children from online threats such as grooming, abuse and harmful content.
However, the ministry maintains Meta’s pledges have yet to translate into concrete protections for users of their social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook and Threads, prompting the ministry to take a closer look at their implementation.
“The [written] commitment has not yet felt like it provides real protection for users, so the ministry continues strict oversight to ensure all of Meta's commitments can be realised soon,” Alexander told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
He added that the ministry is currently drafting an administrative fine to push Meta and other platforms to comply.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment.
In June, Meta said it had improved its policy in light of PP TUNAS, including by restricting interactions between users aged 13 and under and others who share explicit content and restricting its algorithms from recommending sexually suggestive content to child users.
The renewed pressure came on the heels of a push by the Philippines, in which it sought US social media giant Meta and gaming platform Roblox to adopt stronger child-safety measures, which they recently agreed to late last month.
The Philippines’ agreement with Meta came just a day after the company agreed in the US to pay up to US$18 billion over the next decade and adopt new safeguards for teenage users, settling claims that its platforms harmed children.
The measures under the Philippines’ agreement would include age verification, parental controls, faster removal of harmful content and closer cooperation with law enforcement to help boost the platforms’ accountability.
Alexander of the communications ministry noted that these measures revealed a trend towards stronger child safety online across Southeast Asia.
“The ministry sees developments in the Philippines as reflecting a regional policy direction towards strengthening child protection in digital spaces, in line with policies already implemented in Indonesia through PP TUNAS,” he said.
Drafted throughout 2025, the regulation came into effect this March and requires online platforms to conduct a self-assessment of their “risk profile” for children, evaluating factors such as children’s access to interacting with strangers and exposure to violent or pornographic content.
Platforms considered “high-risk” would then be required to put in place several safeguards, including raising the minimum user age to 16, while mandating parental authorisation for all minors.
Before the company’s own self-assessment, the ministry had designated Meta’s social media platforms as among the high-risk services in March, along with YouTube, X, TikTok, Bigo Live and Roblox.
It gave these platforms a three-month deadline to adjust their policies accordingly.
However, the ministry named only Meta in its latest oversight push and did not mention Roblox or other platforms operating in Indonesia.
The ministry did not comment further on Roblox. - Jakarta Post/ANN
