Regulations on Age Restrictions for Children Using Social Media Have Entered the Harmonization Stage

Minister of Communication and Digital Meutya Hafid (photo: Dinda Buana/VOI)

JAKARTA - Minister of Communication and Digital, Meutya Hafid, revealed that the regulation on age restrictions for children in accessing social media has entered the synchronization stage with the Secretary of State (Sesneg) and the Ministry of Law (Kemenkum).

"The age restriction, let's just pray that it is being synchronized with the Secretary of State and the Ministry of Law. So now the process is being synchronized and harmonized," said Meutya on Tuesday, March 18 at the Komdigi office, Jakarta.

Komdigi has also invited various digital platforms operating in Indonesia to discuss the regulation, including TikTok, Meta, and also Google.

It seems that the responses of each digital platform are different. Like TikTok, the social media owned by ByteDance provides full support for the Indonesian government's regulation regarding age restrictions for playing social media.

Apart from TikTok, Google has also previously expressed its support. But on the other hand, Meta believes that age restrictions for children in accessing social media are not the right thing to do.

However, in a meeting with Komdigi on March 12, Meta’s Vice President of Public Policy for Asia-Pacific Simon Milner, suggested empowering parents as the main solution.

Meta also encouraged Komdigi to share the draft regulation on age restrictions for social media use with relevant stakeholders, by holding transparent public consultations so that parents, community organizations civil, and industry players can provide input.

Responding to Meta's request for transparency regarding the age restriction regulation, Menkomdigi Meutya emphasized that Komdigi had invited all parties to discuss directly.

"They (Meta) were invited, we invited all of them and of course we involved others," she said.