January 16, 2025
JAKARTA – The government plans to impose a minimum age limit for social media users to follow in the footsteps of Australia in safeguarding minors online, a move that has been widely lauded but also comes with caution from experts who believe that poorly thought out regulations might be counterproductive.
Communications and Digital Minister Meutya Hafid said following a meeting with President Prabowo Subianto on Monday that discussions had already begun for the government to impose the age restriction through a regulation, with a plan to eventually form a law around protecting children on social media.
“We still want to study [the plan] carefully,” Meutya said. “But, as an interim [to the proposed bill], we will issue a government regulation first while we discuss with the House of Representatives what kind of law can be enacted to protect our children [online]”.
The plan has received Prabowo’s full backing as the President, is “very attentive” to children and “supportive” of measures to protect them better on digital spaces, the minister added.
Previously in November, Australia passed legislation forcing social media companies from Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook to TikTok owned by China’s ByteDance to stop children under 16 years old from logging onto their respective platforms or risk facing fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$30 million).
Australia began trialing methods to enforce the legislation this month, with the full ban expected to take full effect in one year’s time. The bill sets Australia up as a test case for a growing number of governments planning to legislate the age restriction for social media amid concern about its mental health impacts on young people.
To this end, Second Deputy Communications and Digital Minister Nezar Patria told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the government will take its time to plan the regulation, including by learning from Australia’s experience.
“We want to thoroughly speak with all stakeholders, including tech platforms and civil society, before we draft [the regulation]. But essentially, the government wants to ensure a healthy digital space for our children,” Nezar said.
House support
Lawmakers from the House’s Commission I overseeing communication have backed the government’s plan to issue more stringent measures in limiting children’s access to social media.
Deputy commission chair Golkar party politician Dave Laksono said on Wednesday that the country must own up to the fact that some content on social media is not suitable for children.
“So, we must make all kinds of efforts to filter the nation’s future leaders from [content showing] foreign cultures that stray [from our values],” Dave said.
Women’s Empowerment and Children Protection Minister Arifah Fauzi also said that she would support limiting children’s access to social media, although she first said the plan should be studied carefully.
“The government must follow Australia’s lead by first making studies about it. [Limiting children’s access to social media] has long been a discussion point, and hopefully we can get some good news soon,” Arifah said on Tuesday, as quoted by Antara.
Digital literacy
The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) said that it would support the government’s plan to keep children away from social media but said such a regulation should come alongside increased efforts in teaching children and parents digital literacy.
“A minimum age limit is a positive step, but as with any regulation, people will find ways around it. So, the more important thing is to strengthen children’s digital literacy by teaching them which platforms are beneficial to them, and which are dangerous,” Aris said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Nenden Sekar Arum of the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) urged the government to carefully study how it plans to restrict children from social media or risk being counterproductive.
“If people have to upload their ID cards [to prove they are adults], it could lead to more data privacy concerns,” she said on Wednesday. “While social media has its dangers, limiting children’s access to it could also cut their chance to gain new information on [online] platforms.”
She stressed the importance of improving both children and parents’ digital literacy.
“A child can access social media in the first place because their parents gave them a gadget to do so. If parents are aware of the dangers [social media poses], they would not let their children be on these platforms unsupervised. This is a more effective way of protecting children,” Nenden said.
