PP Tunas Considered at Risk of Wrong Target, Industry Urges Focus on High-Risk Platforms

Social media illustration (Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The government's commitment to protect children in the digital space through Government Regulation Number 17 of 2025 concerning the Governance of the Implementation of Electronic Systems in the Protection of Children (PP TUNAS) has attracted the attention of industry players and education observers. The implementation of this policy is considered to need to be carefully evaluated so that it is not targeted.

Until now, public debates regarding PP TUNAS have focused heavily on social media platforms and digital gaming services. In fact, most major platforms are considered to have adequate incentives, resources, and security infrastructure before this regulation was enacted.

Chairman of the Indonesian Game Association (AGI), Shafiq Husein, said that the role of parents remains the most important factor in protecting children in the digital space. He hopes that the socialization of PP TUNAS will be carried out more massively so that the policy objectives can be understood proportionally.

According to Shafiq, the main obstacle to the implementation of this regulation for game developers at this time is the lack of technical clarity and readiness for implementation among industry players. As a result, national digital innovation and creativity are now at stake.

"The news is still very confusing outside, while the information that comes down to us is still quite minimal for that," Shafiq said in his statement, Wednesday, June 3.

Shafiq assessed that policymakers need to be careful not to get caught up in the wrong focus approach. The success of child protection should be measured by how safe they are from real threats such as online gambling, digital exploitation, and cyber fraud, not by how many new obligations are imposed on compliant platforms.

In the context of Indonesia, online gambling is a much more urgent digital threat for the younger generation. Data from the Financial Transaction Reporting and Analysis Center (PPATK) shows that the cumulative turnover of online gambling funds in recent years has penetrated more than Rp. 1,000 trillion, where transactions in 2025 are still at a very large level.

On the other hand, the spotlight also came from the education sector related to the aspect of data security and children's privacy. National Coordinator of the Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI), Ubaid Matraji, assessed that the policy of restricting access to social media for children was a false solution.

Ubaid explained that the age verification mechanism required by the platform has the potential to encourage the collection of large amounts of personal data of children, such as population documents to biometric data. Without strong security standards, this policy is feared to trigger new vulnerabilities such as data leaks.

"The challenge in Indonesia is that a safe digital ecosystem has not been formed and the education of character is weak in the midst of technological disruption," said Ubaid.