TikTok and YouTube have deactivated a total of around 4.7 million accounts belonging to Indonesian children since the country’s youth social media restrictions took effect in late March, the country’s communications and digital affairs minister said.
Speaking late last week, Meutya Hafid told the press that TikTok had deactivated 4.1 million accounts since the imposition of the ban, Reuters reported, while YouTube has deactivated some 600,000 accounts. She added that the ministry was currently checking the self-assessment reports submitted by the two companies, but that it wanted other big tech firms to follow.
“We’re not just delaying a child’s access, but we want behaviors from platforms to change, too,” Meutya said.
On March 28, Indonesia joined a growing cohort of nations in blocking children under the age of 16 from having accounts on “high-risk” digital platforms, which include YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live, and Roblox.
In announcing the measure in March, Meutya Hafid said that the restrictions were intended to safeguard children from online harms.
“Our children face increasingly real threats. From exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud, and most importantly, addiction,” Hafid said. “The government is here so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giant of algorithms.”
As I have noted previously, the Indonesian government has not been shy about flexing its regulatory muscles against big foreign tech firms. Over the past few years, it has introduced a regulation requiring digital platforms to pay media outlets that provide them with content and banned social media companies from facilitating sales of products on their platforms. Its internet regulations also give the government the power to fine or block social media platforms that fail to comply with official requests for the removal of prohibited content
Indonesia’s move came shortly after Australia introduced the world’s first social media ban for under 16s. The policy, which took effect in December, forces social media firms to block users under 16 from having accounts on their platforms, rather than penalizing young people or their parents.
The government claims that more than 5 million under-16 accounts have since been removed, deactivated, or restricted since the ban came into effect, but there is some evidence that its real impact has been limited.
However, one recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Newcastle showed that more than 80 percent of under-16s in Australia said they were still using social media three months after the legislation took effect. This, it said, was due to “limited implementation, incomplete compliance, and substantial circumvention of social media restrictions.”
The Australian government announced this week that it would double the penalty for breaches of the ban to A$99 million, arguing tech companies are “not doing enough” to keep children off harmful social media sites, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announcing that “there are still too many children on social media.”
A long list of countries, including India, China, Türkiye, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and several European nations, have since followed suit in implementing some kinds of restrictions.
As in other nations, the big tech firms have expressed support for child safeguarding, but, as a Meta spokesperson told the Jakarta Globe back in March, “must be implemented carefully so they do not encourage teenagers to move to more dangerous and unmonitored sites, or to experiences without login that bypass important protections.”
