Visiting Meta And Google Headquarters In US California, Puan Maharani Appreciates Support For RI To Fight Judol

JAKARTA - The Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Puan Maharani, made a working visit to the Meta head office in Menlo Park, Silicon Valley area, California, United States (US). Meta is a global technology company that houses popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

At Meta Headquarters, Puan was greeted by Vice President of Product Policy & Strategy Meta, Andy O'Connell, Friday (13/6/2025) local time. Puan was also accompanied by Indonesian citizens who worked there, including the Head of Public Policy, Indonesia & Timor Leste, Berni Moestafa.

With Andy O'Connell and Berni, Puan discussed a number of important issues, ranging from digital literacy, strengthening democracy on social media, as well as monitoring and blocking technology of risky content.

Puan was then invited to tour and see the facilities on Meta, such as the latest existing technologies and are being developed, to the ability to block Meta, where it was conveyed to Indonesia that the most blocked was activities related to online gambling (judol).

Puan also expressed her appreciation for Meta's active steps to support Indonesia's efforts to combat online gambling practices in the digital space.

"As a country with the 4th largest number of Instagram users in the world, Indonesia needs to encourage policies that can optimize the use of social media and digital channels positively and responsibly," said Puan in a written statement received by VOI.

Puan said that Meta's concrete steps that have blocked thousands of content and accounts related to online gambling helped protect Indonesians from judol. Indonesia is known to be listed as one of the countries with the highest number of judol content blocked on the Meta platform.

"This Meta step is very helpful for Indonesia's efforts to combat online gambling practices. Thank you for this collaboration. In the future, our digital space must be strengthened so that it is healthier and safer for the community," said Puan.

The former Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture emphasized that judol is an illegal practice that must be tackled together. Not only violating the law, said Puan, judol had a bad impact on the social side of society.

"Judol has serious social impacts ranging from family financial losses, potential criminalities, to the destruction of the younger generation. Indonesia itself also continues to take various steps in an effort to fight judol," explained the first woman to serve as Chair of the DPR RI.

"Therefore, collaboration with digital platforms is very important to ensure that these kinds of content have no room to grow in cyberspace," added Puan.

While walking around the Meta office, Puan also saw their latest technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) systems, digital security features, and automatic detection capabilities of problematic content.

At the Meta Headquarters, Puan also met a number of Indonesian citizens who are now working there. One of them is Sara Angelita who is from Tarakan, North Kalimantan. Sara works in the AI team for WhatsApp.

Sara said she was proud to have the opportunity to meet Puan directly. Moreover, Indonesia is one of the countries with the largest Whatsapp users in the world.

"I'm very happy today Mrs. Puan visited Meta and I met Mrs. Puan in person because on Meta, Indonesia is one of the largest users in the world, especially Whatsapp. So I'm very proud to be working on Whatsapp," said Sara.

Sara said she was happy to be an Indonesian citizen who had the opportunity to work on Meta.

"I really enjoy working on Meta because it feels like a lot of Meta can be learned and a lot of smart people here. So everything is very encourage so that we study here the culture so that everyone learns with teamwork, I really like culture," said Sara.

Apart from going to Meta Headquarters, Puan also visited Google's headquarters in the United States known as Googleplex. Google's head office is located in Mountain View, California.