Comments on Online Gambling Promotion Spam on Social Media Soar, Komdigi Does This

Director General of Digital Space Supervision at the Ministry of Komdigi, Alexander Sabar (photo: Dinda Buana/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Communication and Digital has found a significant increase in the spread of spam comments promoting online gambling on a number of social media accounts from various platforms.

Based on the results of monitoring, the Director General of Digital Space Supervision of the Ministry of Komdigi, Alexander Sabar, said that the spread of judo promotions through spam comments had increased by 128% in the last two weeks, compared to the average findings in the period from January to June 2026.

"From our analysis, this shows that this surge is part of an organized, transnational activity, which uses automated systems or machines or bots to monitor social media in real time," Alex said in a press conference on Monday, June 29 at the Komdigi office, Jakarta.

According to him, when the upload of high-reach accounts experiences an increase in interaction, the system will automatically distribute comments containing promotions and links to online gambling sites.

This increase was exacerbated by the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup on June 11, which was then used by perpetrators to increase sports betting promotions.

"We also identify and follow up on the pattern of spreading comments promoting online gambling that use fake accounts using machines or bots on the Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok platforms. This pattern is characterized by repeated comments that include variations of keywords and hashtags to avoid the automatic moderation system of the platform," he explained.

Based on network analysis, Alex said, the operation to spread online gambling spam comments connected to various online gambling platforms was carried out transnationally, coordinated, using a network of accounts indicated to be based in India and Brazil.

Alex emphasized that Komdigi had coordinated with the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and the Financial Transaction Reporting and Analysis Center (PPATK) to take mitigation measures.

Komdigi also intensively coordinates with law enforcement in this case the police of the Republic of Indonesia (POLRI) so that law enforcement against online gambling continues to be strengthened.

"Currently, the sites that are suspected of online gambling have been taken action by cutting off access or takedown. We also urge the public not to access, share or interact with online gambling promotional content," he said.