JAKARTA: The Communications and Digital Ministry has finished drafting policies on penalties for social media platforms that fail to comply with Indonesia’s Child Protection in Digital Space Regulation, known as PP TUNAS, ranging from fines to full access blocking.
After reviewing compliance six months after the regulation took effect in March, Communications and Digital Minister Meutya Hafid noted several platforms, including Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and Threads; Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and ByteDance’s TikTok, had yet to fully meet their obligations.
She urged them to comply before the self-assessment deadline on Dec. 31. Should the platforms fail to complete their self-assessments by year-end, the government would step in and conduct its own assessments.
The government has also finalised the formula of fines for digital platforms found to be violating the regulation. For large-scale or global platforms, the fine is set at six per cent of their global revenue.
Meanwhile, punishment for domestic electronic system providers (PSE) is based on their business scale, with a maximum fine of Rp 1 billion (US$56,447) for micro enterprises and Rp 10 billion for medium-sized ones.
“These formulas have been passed through public consultation. We have also officially informed the PSEs, especially the eight high-risk ones, and handed this over to the Finance Ministry to be deliberated and set in the [non-tax revenue regulation] with other related ministries,” Meutya said in a briefing on Monday (Sept 14).
The government issued PP TUNAS with an aim to make the digital space safer for children amid growing concerns over exposure to harmful online content, pornography, cyberbullying, exploitation and addiction.
The regulation classifies digital platforms into three tiers based on risks to children. High-risk platforms include social media, chat apps, streaming services and certain online games, and they are restricted to users under 16 and must apply parental authorisation for minor users.
Aside from the five platforms, interactive gaming platform Roblox, xAI’s social networking platform X and Joyy Inc.’s live streaming app Bigo Live were also included in the ministry’s high-risk list. Medium-risk platforms, including e-commerce and general streaming services, may allow users aged 13 to 15 with verified parental consent.
Minister Meutya said several high-risk platforms had since complied, including gaming application Roblox, which has used a “strict” age-estimation system to move 23 million users to Roblox Kids, a version with stricter limits on chat, content and interactions.
However, other platforms, including X, have yet to fully implement the required restrictions, she said, with only 250,000 accounts belonging to users under 16 reported so far, far below the government’s estimate of seven million. Meutya also called on X to establish a representative office in Indonesia to improve coordination.
“We note that X does not yet have a representative office in Indonesia, which makes coordination, monitoring and evaluation difficult when it comes to ensuring follow-up on the fulfillment of child protection obligations,” Meutya said
Meta is also deemed to have not yet fully complied with the child protection regulation. The government estimates some 33 million accounts belonging to users under 16 still exist across the three platforms, while Meta’s latest report in May identified 184,000 of such accounts on Facebook.
The communications ministry previously stated that Meta had submitted written commitments to comply with PP TUNAS. The tech firm faced renewed pressure after it settled claims in the United States that its platforms harmed children and agreed to pay up to US$18 billion over the next decade and adopt new safeguards for teenage users.
Indonesia, however, remained unconvinced of Meta’s commitment to fully implement its rules, with Minister Meutya saying: “We assess that Meta is still failing to protect children in Indonesia”.
YouTube reported in April of having removed more than 600,000 child accounts and introduced SafeSearch feature, but has not provided updated figures and remains accessible to many children.
TikTok similarly reported disabling 4.1 million child accounts in May, but also reported no new figures or significant changes to its child-safety features. Representatives of Meta, Google that oversees YouTube and TikTok in Indonesia did not provide comments when requested by The Jakarta Post. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
