Indonesia summons Meta and Google over non-compliance with child social media curbs, minister says

JAKARTA, March 31 (Reuters) – Indonesia summoned officials from Meta and Google over non-compliance with social media restrictions for children under 16 that went into full effect last week, a minister said in a video statement published on Tuesday.

* Indonesia requires social media companies with platformsit deems high risk to deactivate accounts belonging to childrenunder 16, under a regulation that went into effect last week. * Meutya Hafid, Indonesia’s Communications and DigitalMinister, said Meta and Google are “two business entities thatare non-compliant with the law” and that they were summoned onMonday to “undergo checks”. * Failure to implement the curbs may result in sanctions oreven a block on the platform, the ministry has said. * Meutya said Google and Meta had opposed the curbs from thevery beginning. * Google and Meta did not immediately respond to a requestfor comment on Tuesday. Both companies said last week they hadput in place safeguards for children. * Roblox and TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, are twoother platforms deemed high risk by the ministry. Meutya saidthe ministry sent a warning to the two companies to be fullycompliant or risk being summoned. TikTok and Roblox did notimmediately respond to a request for comment.  * Indonesia’s curbs, which the government says are intendedto reduce the risk of cyberbullying and addiction, follow a banin Australia last year over concerns about social media’spotential harms to young people’s mental health. * The criteria for high-risk platforms include thepossibility of talking to strangers, addictive qualities andpsychological risks, the ministry said. * Internet penetration in Indonesia reached 80.66% in 2025,according to a survey by the Indonesia Internet ServiceProviders’ Association. The survey showed it was 87.8% among”Gen Z” users aged 13 to 28. * There are about 70 million children under 16 in Indonesia,Meutya said.

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by John Mair)