Indonesia’s fight against illegal online gambling: 3.3m pieces of content removed

The content was blocked between July 17, 2023 and September 17, 2024.

Indonesia.- Budie Arie Setiadi, Indonesia’s communication and informatics minister, has announced that between July 17, 2023 and September 17, 2024, his ministry removed 3,383,000 pieces of online gambling content. The ministry also submitted 20,842 keywords related to online gambling to Google from November 7, 2023 to August 8, 2024 and 5,173 to Meta from December 15, 2023 to August 8, 2024.

During a press conference, Arie also said he has asked the Bank Indonesia (BI) to block 573 digital wallets linked to online gambling. The government has implemented a monitoring system using artificial intelligence to detect websites associated with online gambling.

The ministry is also collaborating with the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) to stop the use of payment and banking systems for online gambling. In addition, Arie also mentioned plans to restrict access to free virtual private networks (VPNs) to prevent access to online gambling.

Gambling in Indonesia is illegal for both citizens and foreigners.