Indonesia urges social media to tackle disinformation surge

Indonesia has summoned representatives from major social media platforms—starting with Meta and ByteDance's TikTok—to demand stronger content moderation, following a rise in disinformation that has sparked public unrest, according to a media report.

Government official Angga Raka Prabowo highlighted that the spread of false content online has fueled anger and triggered protests against the government. Notable examples include a deepfake video falsely portraying Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati as stating that teachers are a burden to the country, as well as older footage of riots in Jakarta being falsely presented as recent events.

Prabowo stated that the government will push platforms to take more proactive action in moderating or removing harmful content—including disinformation, pornography, and online gambling—without waiting for formal government requests.

Separate meetings with TikTok and Meta are scheduled for later this week, with additional invitations extended to representatives from YouTube Indonesia and Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).

According to the report, TikTok and Instagram each have over 100 million users based in Indonesia, making them among the platforms’ largest user bases globally.

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