Indonesian Communications and Digital Minister Meutya Hafid said Thursday that Google’s YouTube platform has not complied with Jakarta’s ban on social media accounts for children under 16 and could face “sanctions” if it does not begin meeting its obligations under the law.
Indonesia banned access to “high risk platforms” for children under 16 in March. In response to criticism that the government was dumping a massive unfunded mandate on social media companies without much warning, Hafid said “the process will be done gradually until all platforms perform their obligations.”
“The basis is clear. Our children face increasingly real threats. From exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud, and most importantly addiction. The government is here so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giant of algorithms,” she said.
As things turned out, Hafid’s promise of gradual implementation worked out to less than a week. In early April, her office issued two rounds of summonses to Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for “failure to comply” with the new ban. The first summons was issued only a few days after the ban took effect.
“Summonses can be issued up to a maximum of three times before sanctions are imposed,” the communications ministry warned.
Indonesian Director General for Digital Space Supervision Alexander Sabar explained that the new law was enforced with such urgency because “every delay prolongs the risks faced by children in the digital space.”
“Therefore, we demand concrete and timely compliance from all platforms, including global platforms,” he said.
The compliance challenge was made greater by Indonesia’s high level of social media use, and a population that skews young. At the time the under-16 ban was implemented, Indonesia had one of the largest pools of social media users in the world, and it has at least 70 million children under age 16.
Hafid said on Thursday that her agency can no longer “tolerate” noncompliance from YouTube, so “now we’re moving on to sanctions,” although for the moment those sanctions are limited to the official letter of reprimand she sent to Google.
The Indonesian government has warned it could take more severe action against social media platforms that do not comply with its ban, including heavy fines and banning offending platforms from operating in Indonesia at all.
In addition to YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, Indonesia’s list of “high risk platforms” that must be forbidden to children includes TikTok, X, Threads, Robolox, and Bigo Live, which is a live-streaming platform that includes chat rooms.
Hafid praised X and Bigo Live for complying with the new law immediately, while she said Roblox and TikTok have demonstrated only “partial” compliance.
Meta and Google both objected to the ban, with Meta arguing that “parents should decide which apps their teens use,” while Google said the ban would push teens to use YouTube anonymously – thus evading the parental controls and content restrictions that are already in place.
Indonesia is part of a growing worldwide movement to restrict social media for children that was inspired by Australia’s strict ban on under-16s, which took effect in December. Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells said about 4.7 million social media accounts for children had been shut down within a month of implementation.
On Thursday, Greece became the latest country to announce it was working on bill to keep children away from social media. The Greek bill has a cutoff age of 15, and would take effect on January 1, 2027 if passed into law.
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