Ministry to Meet Meta Over Online Gambling Comment Spam

The Ministry of Communication and Digital (Kemkomdigi) plans to meet with Meta, the electronic system operator (PSE) overseeing the digital platforms Instagram and Facebook, to tackle the discovery of spam comments containing online gambling promotional material. Director General of Digital Space Supervision at Kemkomdigi, Alexander Sabar, stated that this step was taken because the online gambling comment spam has been most frequently found on these two platforms over the past two weeks and is suspected to be a new method of spreading online gambling content. “According to our monitoring, these online gambling promotional comments are most widely spread on platforms under Meta, namely Instagram and Facebook. We plan to meet with Meta representatives soon to follow up on this matter,” Alex said during a press conference on the progress of handling online gambling at the Kemkomdigi Office in Central Jakarta on Monday. Although the number of comments may seem small, Alex noted that the impact of this online gambling spam could potentially be amplified to reach more new victims because the perpetrators target accounts with large followings and high interaction rates. Besides Meta, Alex mentioned that findings of online gambling promotional comment spam were also prevalent on ByteDance’s TikTok platform. As another solution in combating online gambling, which constantly changes its methods, Kemkomdigi is intensively coordinating with law enforcement officials, the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK), and the Financial Services Authority (OJK) to close the loopholes that allow these illegal gambling practices to operate. Alex appealed to the public to protect themselves in the digital space by not being tempted by the online gambling promotional material they encounter. “Gambling in our criminal law system remains a criminal act. So, whatever the game model, as long as it is gambling, whether land-based or online, it remains a criminal offence. Therefore, we urge the public to avoid online gambling by not interacting with the spam comments on social media,” Alex said. The government, through Kemkomdigi, announced the discovery of a new modus operandi for spreading online gambling content. This time, the method has grown alongside the momentum of the FIFA World Cup 2026 football tournament. According to Alexander Sabar, this is a new transnational modus operandi, evidenced by a 128 percent surge in online gambling content findings during the last two-week period (14-28 June 2026) compared to findings from January to early June 2026. The accounts posting the spam comments were identified as operating using machines or bots based in Brazil and India. Therefore, the public is urged to stay away from and not interact with accounts spreading online gambling promotional comments to avoid becoming new victims.