Indonesia plans to introduce a regulation to establish a minimum age for social media users in an effort to protect children, according to the country’s communications minister.
The decision follows Australia’s move to ban children under 16 from accessing social media, with fines imposed on tech giants like Instagram and Facebook owner Meta, as well as TikTok, if they fail to prevent children from accessing their platforms.
Minister Meutya Hafid did not specify the minimum age for social media users in Indonesia. Her remarks came late on Monday after discussing the plan with President Prabowo Subianto.
“We discussed how to protect children in the digital space,” she said in a video uploaded to the president’s office YouTube channel. “The president said to carry on with this plan. He is very supportive of how this kind of child protection will be implemented in our digital space,” she added.
Internet penetration in Indonesia, a country with about 280 million people, reached 79.5 percent last year, according to a survey by the Indonesia Internet Service Providers’ Association, which involved 8,700 participants. The survey showed that 48 percent of children under 12 had access to the Internet, with some of them using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Internet penetration among “Gen Z” users, aged 12 to 27, was 87 percent.
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