After Australia’s ban, Indonesia mulls minimum age for social media
Medan, Indonesia – As the mother of an 18-month-old daughter, Laila Lubis is busy experiencing the challenges and joys of new motherhood.
Though her daughter only recently uttered her first words, Lubis is already thinking about how the internet and social media could shape her development long into the future.
“I will never give a mobile phone to my child,” Lubis, who works as a humanitarian worker in Mandailing Natal, North Sumatra, told Al Jazeera.
“I will not allow my daughter to use a mobile phone for as long as I can. Maybe when my child is around six years old, I will think about homeschooling her for kindergarten, so she will have to have access to the internet for that.”
Across Indonesia, countless families are having similar discussions among themselves as the government prepares to introduce a minimum age for using social media.
Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs Meutya Hafid first floated the plans last month, as part of an effort to boost child protection policies in the archipelago of some 280 million people.
Though the government has yet to announce a specific age limit, officials have stressed the need for stronger regulation to protect minors from “physical, mental, or moral perils”.
Indonesia’s bid comes on the heels of a similar effort in neighbouring Australia, which in November became the first country to introduce a ban on under-16s from accessing social media.
Under Australian legislation, social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram face fines of up to $32m if they fail to enforce the age requirements.
In advance of the introduction of its law, Jakarta has announced its intention to impose interim child protection guidelines on social media companies while the government drafts legislation.
Lubis said while the ban has yet to come to fruition, she believes it is positive that the government has kickstarted discussion about keeping children safe online.
“I believe that there are more negatives rather than positives for children using social media and the internet, especially very young children,” she said.
The potential ban is the latest in a series of efforts by the Indonesian government to rein in Big Tech firms.
In October, Indonesian authorities banned sales of Apple’s iPhone 16 and the Google Pixel over the companies’ failure to comply with regulations mandating that smartphones source at least 40 percent of their parts locally.
In 2022, the government threatened to block Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram if they did not register with the Ministry of Communication, though the companies were spared from the ban after signing up before the deadline.
Authorities also blocked popular streaming platform Netflix from 2016 to 2020 amid fears that it promoted “inappropriate content”, including pornography, and briefly blocked video-sharing platform TikTok in 2018.
“In a way, the issue does reflect a broader source of tension between Jakarta and Big Tech, and the government’s push for greater corporate accountability in maintaining a secure information space for Indonesians,” Gatra Priyandita, a senior analyst in cyber-technology and security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera.
“By imposing age limits on social media use, the burden of enforcement shifts to tech companies, making them directly responsible for compliance and potential fallout,” Priyandita said, adding that discussions about restricting social media have swirled in Indonesia for years, although serious efforts have gained traction only recently.
“Authorities have primarily focused on child exploitation, radical narratives, and other harmful content,” he said.
While Australia’s legislation broke new ground, Indonesia’s potential ban would affect far more people.
About 139 million Indonesians use social media and almost half of children below the age of 12 access platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, according to the Indonesia Internet Service Provider Association.
Priyandita said Gen Z users aged 12 to 27 have the highest internet usage rate in Indonesia, at 87 percent, with most of them active on TikTok and Instagram – both of which boast more than 110 million users in the country.
“Gen Alpha [people born after 2010] are likely to be highly proactive users of social media as well. Their departure from these platforms will mean that social media may be set to lose huge numbers of followers,” he said.
As in Australia, the plans to enforce a minimum age have also raised concerns about privacy and the potential misuse of user data.
“Enforcing minimum age requirements on social media platforms would necessitate user identification, such as driver’s licences or national IDs. This poses significant privacy risks, particularly for platforms that encourage anonymity, like Reddit, as sensitive data could be breached or sold,” Priyandita said.
“One alternative is for the government to store user data while platforms simply verify IDs without retaining personal information. However, digital ID systems carry their own security vulnerabilities, as they remain susceptible to data breaches and misuse.”
Some Indonesians question the need for government intervention to keep minors away from popular platforms.
Adi Sarwono, a social worker who runs the Busa Pustaka literacy programme for underprivileged children in Lampung, Sumatra, said social media use among young people has both positive and negative aspects.
“The positives include developing children’s creativity and their communication skills. However, there are negative things that social media creates such as affecting concentration, causing excessive anxiety, lack of self-confidence, and even sleep disorders and bullying,” Sarwono told Al Jazeera.
Trying to eradicate or limit social media use among children may be difficult to achieve in an age where most people are online, Sarwono said.
“Technological progress is not something that can be resisted, but it can be used wisely. There is a need to control children’s access to social media and the timing of when they use it,” he said.
“There also needs to be space to ensure children are monitored when using social media.”
Source: Aisyah Llewellyn
Judge halts Trump order barring gender-affirming care for transgender teens
A United States federal judge has temporarily blocked an executive order from President Donald Trump that curtailed access to gender transition care for people younger than 19.
Thursday’s ruling by District Judge Brendan Hurson stems from a lawsuit brought by the families of transgender teenagers and watchdog groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
In his decision, Hurson said that the executive order, which refers to gender-affirming healthcare as “chemical and surgical mutilation of children”, seems to “deny that this population even exists, or deserves to exist”.
The ruling represents the latest blow to Trump’s agenda in the courts, where the legality of many of his measures has been met with scepticism.
Trump’s order, issued on January 27, pledged to rigorously enforce laws to “prohibit or limit” what were termed as “destructive and life-altering procedures”, including the use of puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries for those transitioning.
It also called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to halt federal funds that may go to covering gender-affirming care or related research.
The ACLU and Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ civil rights group, represented the families involved in the ongoing lawsuit. They said their clients saw hospital services stop as a result of Trump’s order.
“Good and decent parents of transgender kids should never be in the frightening position of having their child’s prescribed, medically necessary care canceled at the whim and threat of a politician,” Brian K Bond, the chief executive officer of the LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG, said in a news release.
A coalition of 13 state attorneys general, including New York’s Letitia James, also called on healthcare providers to continue providing necessary services to transgender youth, calling Trump’s order discriminatory.
“The Trump administration’s recent Executive Order is wrong on the science and the law,” a statement from the attorneys general said.
While transitioning is a lengthy and deliberate process that requires input and evaluation by professionals, Trump’s order characterised such steps as “maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex”.
Republican politicians have heightened their attacks on transgender rights and services in recent years, often employing rhetoric that questions the legitimacy of transgender identity in general.
Trump himself signed a separate executive order on the first day of his second term saying his government would only “recognize two sexes, male and female” – and denying the concept of a “gender identity”.
He has also proceeded to threaten to withhold funds from schools that would allow transgender women and girls to participate in female sporting events.
Such restrictions are not limited to transgender youth, either. In another executive order taking aim at transgender members of the military, Trump said that “a man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member”.
Less than 2 percent of the US population identifies as transgender or nonbinary, but the small population has become the target of persistent ire from conservative politicians and figures.
Source: Al Jazeera
Scores of children raped by armed men in eastern DRC, UNICEF says
Scores of children caught up in the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been subjected to sexual violence including rape by armed men, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
The targeting of children has soared to unprecedented levels in recent weeks, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell warned on Thursday, making an urgent appeal for the violence to stop as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels expand their footprint, clashing with Congolese forces and their allied militias.
“In North and South Kivu provinces, we are receiving horrific reports of grave violations against children by parties to the conflict, including rape and other forms of sexual violence at levels surpassing anything we have seen in recent years,” Russell said in a statement.
Sharing the stories of some survivors, she said: “One mother recounted to our staff how her six daughters, the youngest just 12 years old, were systematically raped by armed men while searching for food.”
UNICEF’s accusation came as the conflict in the mineral-rich region shows no signs of abating, as M23, which captured North Kivu’s capital Goma last month, pushes further south. Thousands have been killed and tens of thousands more displaced, the UN has said.
The agency’s partners in the region reported that the number of rape cases treated across 42 health facilities jumped five-fold in one week from January 27 to February 2, Russell said.
“Of those treated, 30 percent were children. The true figures are likely much higher because so many survivors are reluctant to come forward.”
Russell added that she was “deeply alarmed by the intensifying violence”, particularly the effects on children and families.
‘All parties’ committed violence
Lianne Gutcher, UNICEF’s communication chief in DRC, told The Associated Press news agency that of the total 572 rape cases reported, 170 were children.
“It is suspected that all parties to the conflict committed sexual violence,” Gutcher said.
Partner agencies are now running out of the drugs used to reduce the risk of HIV infection after the sexual assaults, Russell said.
As fighting intensifies, hundreds of children have been separated from their fleeing families, exposing them to heightened risks of violence, she added.
In just the past two weeks, more than 1,100 unaccompanied children have been identified in the two Kivu provinces, according to UNICEF.
As the rebel offensive widens, recruitment of youth by all groups is likely to accelerate, with reports of children as young as 12 being enlisted or coerced to join the fighting.
“Parties to the conflict must immediately cease and prevent grave rights violations against children,” Russell said.
M23, which UN experts say is backed by Rwanda, in recent months has swiftly seized tracts of territory in eastern DRC after again taking up arms in late 2022, in a country plagued by numerous conflicts for decades.
M23 claims to be fighting for the interests of ethnic Tutsis and has continued its military campaign in DRC despite calls from regional leaders to end the fighting.
Source: Al Jazeera