Child’s play? Southeast Asia takes on Big Tech to protect kids online
Indonesia officially barred under-16s from using “high-risk” social media earlier this year. But that hasn’t stopped the son of one Jakarta-based writer from using it. Aged 14, he already had accounts on Instagram and TikTok – among the platforms Jakarta said children would be banned from using – as well as popular video game Minecraft and gaming platform Roblox. To register, he simply lied about…
Indonesia has recently implemented strict rules to protect children from using "high-risk" social media platforms. Despite these regulations, children continue to use platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Roblox by falsely claiming to be older. To combat this, the Indonesian government has given tech companies until the end of the year to complete self-assessments on how they protect children online.
Failure to comply could result in fines of up to 6% of a firm's global revenue. Meta Platforms and TikTok have already taken steps to comply, with TikTok deactivating 9 million underage accounts. However, critics argue that these measures do not go far enough as the platforms are still classified as high-risk.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
