Social Media Regulation for Children and Efforts to Protect Indonesia's Digital Generation
Jakarta — The Ministry of Communication and Digital has recently announced that starting 28 March 2026, social media accounts belonging to users under 16 years of age will be progressively deactivated.
This policy is governed by the Ministry of Communication and Digital Regulation Number 9 of 2026, which derives from Government Regulation Number 17 of 2025 concerning the Governance of Electronic System Operators in Child Protection (PP Tunas). Through this regulation, the government restricts access for children under 16 years to a number of high-risk digital platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live, and Roblox.
The policy has sparked varied responses within society. Some regard it as a decisive step by the state to protect children from exposure to harmful content, cyberbullying, and device addiction. Others question its effectiveness and implications for children’s rights to access information and participate in digital spaces.
This debate demonstrates that social media use by children is no longer merely a technology issue, but has become a social, educational, and public policy matter.
As children grow up as a generation born within a digital ecosystem, the state faces a dilemma: ensuring protection from various cyber risks whilst guaranteeing children’s rights to learn, express themselves, and participate in digital life. In this context, social media regulation for children serves as an effort to organise the digital space whilst protecting Indonesia’s digital generation.
Internet user explosion
Data shows that internet penetration in Indonesia continues to increase rapidly. Based on the Indonesian Internet Penetration Survey released by the Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers (APJII), the number of internet users in the country has reached approximately 221 million people, equivalent to 79.5 per cent of the total national population. This figure ranks Indonesia among the countries with the largest number of internet users in the world.
Notably, almost half of these internet users are from the young age group. The Ministry of Communication and Digital states that approximately 48 per cent of internet users in Indonesia, or around 110 million people, are under 18 years old. This indicates that the digital space is no longer dominated by adults, but also by children and adolescents growing up as a digital generation from an early age.
This phenomenon has even emerged at a very young age. The Central Bureau of Statistics in 2024 recorded that 39.71 per cent of early childhood children in Indonesia have used mobile phones, whilst a further 35.57 per cent have accessed the internet. In the age group of 5–6 years, device usage even reached 58.25 per cent, with more than half of them connected to the internet.
On one hand, digital access can open significant opportunities for children to acquire knowledge, learn, and interact more widely. On the other hand, increased child involvement in the digital space presents various unavoidable risks, ranging from exposure to negative content, cyberbullying, to internet-based sexual exploitation.
This situation has prompted the government to strengthen regulatory measures to ensure that the digital space becomes a safer environment for the development of the younger generation.