In Indonesia, TikTok and YouTube have closed approximately 4.7 million social media accounts belonging to children under 16 years old, according to Digital and Telecommunications Minister Meutya Hafid.
Among these, Chinese tech company ByteDance's TikTok closed 4.1 million accounts and Google's YouTube closed 600,000 accounts, with calls for other social media platforms to take similar action.
These account closures are the result of new regulations announced by the Indonesian government in March, aimed at reducing children's exposure to disturbing content online and decreasing their addiction to social media. Under these regulations, platforms identified as potentially harmful such as X (Twitter), Instagram, and Roblox are also required to close accounts belonging to children under 16 years old.
The minister stated that the government not only wants to simply restrict children's social media usage, but also to change how platforms operate. Similar restrictions on social media for children's mental and physical health are being increasingly implemented across the globe, including in Australia and Britain.
Ref: Bangkokpost
