Will Indonesia’s plan to restrict children’s access to social media succeed?

Indonesia’s plan to restrict children from accessing social media to protect them from the perils of the internet has raised concerns over how it will be implemented and the government’s potential encroachment on privacy. Jakarta will be following in the footsteps of neighbouring Australia, which in November approved a law banning the use of social media by children under 16 and requiring social media companies to verify ages. This week, Indonesian government officials announced plans to issue similar child protection guidelines for social media platforms, including setting a minimum age, as a step towards developing a permanent law. “Actually, we want to study this carefully first, but in principle, while [waiting] for a more permanent [law], the government will issue a regulation first,” Communications Minister Meutya Hafid told reporters on Thursday after meeting President Prabowo Subianto. The plan had already gained Prabowo’s approval, she said. “The president is very attentive when it comes to children. He said earlier to continue [with the plan] and to study [it further], so that it can be implemented. He really supports this child protection [regulation], and he hopes that it can be imposed in the future in our digital realm,” Meutya said. Alexander Sabar, director general of digital space supervision at the ministry, said during a radio interview on Tuesday that internet content and access to social media would be “adjusted” according to the age groups of children between three and 17. “We would set the age [brackets] of the children based on clear categories. For example, children aged 13 to 15. Parents would have veto rights over their children’s social media access,” Sabar said. Nearly 37 per cent of children under 15 in Indonesia already use smartphones, according to data from the government’s statistics agency from 2023. Sabar insisted the coming rules, and any future law, would protect personal data while respecting children’s right to information. The plan was met with support from Arifah Fauzi, the minister of women’s empowerment and child protection, who proposed the regulation include a restriction on gadget usage in school. “We are proposing that schools no longer assign homework to children through gadgets, [because] now everything is done via WhatsApp,” Arifah said on Tuesday. The proposed policy was welcomed by NGO Save the Children Indonesia in a social media post, which also said it had pushed for the government to issue a regulation limiting screen time for children. “In addition to this policy, internet literacy and education on the wise use of social media must be encouraged so that children and parents can benefit from it and understand the risks,” the organisation said. According to a Unicef survey of 510 children in Indonesia in 2023, 89 per cent of the respondents said they used the internet for an average of 5.4 hours per day. Forty-eight per cent said they had been bullied by other children online and 50.3 per cent said they had seen sexual images on social media. The survey also found that while most parents put limitations on their children’s use of the internet, 21.2 per cent of children said they did not obey those rules. Data protection concerns While many online users expressed support for imposing such restrictions, others cited concerns related to enforcement and data protection, particularly in a country dubbed “open source” by its own citizens due to regular massive data breaches. “I’m sure the government has prepared a strategy to increase digital literacy for children, customer data security, age verification technology that cannot be manipulated … and increasing education for parents, teachers, like in Australia,” user Irvan Kartawiria wrote in a sarcastic comment on X. Another user, Agung Wardana, pointed out that in Australia, screen time could be reduced by “diverting children to play outside because there are free playgrounds in every suburb. What about Indonesia? If [the government] can only [ban] but does not provide a medium for diverting your child’s energy, it won’t be effective”. Nenden Arum, executive director at Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network, an NGO advocating on digital rights protection, said the plan was “not ideal” for implementation in Indonesia. “In Australia, the ban still has not kicked off. Its effectiveness is not yet apparent and it has also drawn a lot of criticism, especially in the context of protecting the privacy of other users,” Nenden said. She also questioned how regulators and social media platforms would verify users’ age and whether their online activities would be monitored. “On the one hand, this is an effort to protect the children but, inevitably, there would be a trade-off as it also has the potential to violate the rights of other users’ privacy,” she said. Jakarta-based family and child psychologist Anna Surti Ariani said she supported the proposed policy but warned authorities that many children already claimed to be older than 13 years old to pass platforms’ minimum-age requirement. “It will also be necessary to consider what if the child is actually helped by someone else to create a social media account. For example, his or her older sibling, maid or even parents,” said Anna, who works for Institute of Applied Psychology at the University of Indonesia. “As far as I understand, this rule would only apply to creating an account, which means that if they already have an account, the child would be able to access it even though they are not yet 16 years old. Therefore, a strategy will also be needed to limit children and teenagers from accessing their social media accounts.” She expressed hope that the restriction would extend to “online games and entertainment”, which she said exposed children to various risks.

Will Indonesia’s plan to restrict children’s access to social media succeed?

While many support the policy and say it should also limit screen time, others are concerned about implementation and data privacy