Indonesia plans to introduce social media ban for those under 16 years old, affecting about 70 million people

China News Service report The Indonesian government plans to introduce a social media ban targeting people under the age of 16. Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Affairs Mertiya Hafiz said on the 11th that if the age limit is 16 years old, about 70 million people are expected to be affected by the relevant policies. This is the first time that the relevant scale has been officially disclosed.

The Indonesian government announced at the beginning of this month that it plans to implement relevant measures in phases starting from March 28 to restrict the use of some social media platforms by users under the age of 16. This move has aroused widespread concern in the local society.

Several Indonesian cabinet departments held coordination meetings on the policy that day. Murtiah Hafiz said that the government is further communicating with relevant departments to improve the policy implementation mechanism to ensure that the measures can be smoothly promoted.

According to the plan announced by the Indonesian government, the initial stage of policy implementation will focus on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Photo Wall, and X. Relevant platforms need to implement age restrictions, risk assessment and other measures to strengthen the protection of minors.

Murtiah Hafez pointed out that the number of minors in Indonesia is huge. Data shows that there are about 82 million people under the age of 18 in the country. If the age of 16 is used as the boundary, the number of people involved is about 70 million. Compared with some countries that have launched similar policies, Indonesia faces a larger user scale when implementing relevant measures.

The Indonesian government stated that this measure was introduced mainly to deal with the risks that minors face in cyberspace, including pornography, bullying, fraud, and Internet addiction.

Murtiah Hafiz said that the government hopes to gradually create a safer and healthier digital environment through multi-department collaboration and provide better protection for minors using the Internet.