Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs shuts down 1.3 million gambling and porn sites in the last six months
The Komdigi (Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs has been busy since the end of last year, removing over 1,350,000 instances of online gambling and adult entertainment content from the internet, according to public reports highlighted on Tempo. 1,118, 849 of this total number were related to online gambling, which is illegal in Indonesia.
The majority of these were from websites but there were also nearly 50,000 instances of illegal online gambling promotion on Meta’s services, Instagram and Facebook. You can find the full breakdown further down this page, but it is perhaps surprising that the majority of instances were actual websites and not more on social media.
The operation has also led to the shutdown of three prominent Instagram accounts—@literasi.story (439,000 followers), @gadis.terkini (233,000 followers), and @adeliaa.ajah (321,000 followers)—all of which were promoting and linking to online gambling sites. These accounts fell foul of the strict rules in place in the country and have been removed.
Komdigi’s Director General of Digital Space Supervision, Alexander Sabar said, “These numbers highlight websites and social media as the main challenges in curbing negative content.”
Although it would seem the battle is ongoing with a further 58,000 new cases coming to Komdigi’s attention since the beginning of this month alone.
Komdigi now plans to use enhanced AI-powered monitoring systems and strengthen its cooperation with global digital platforms for more efficient enforcement, reports Tempo. It is also encouraging the public to report ‘harmful content’ including online gambling and pornography via an official portal website.
Scope of the OperationBetween October 20 and December 4, 2024, Komdigi targeted 464,440 instances of online gambling content across various digital platforms. The breakdown is as follows:
- Websites and IP Addresses: 428,969 instances
- Meta Platforms (including Facebook and Instagram): 19,250 accounts
- File-Sharing Platforms: 9,842 instances
- Google/YouTube: 3,836 instances
- X (formerly Twitter: 2,201 instances
- Telegram: 222 instances
- TikTok: 118 instances
Featured image courtesy of Tom Fisk (Pexels)
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