JAKARTA – The Ministry of Communication and Digital (Kemkomdigi) continues to intensify efforts to eradicate online gambling content in Indonesia’s digital space. From 2017 to December 17, 2024, 5.4 million online gambling content has been successfully prosecuted.
“In the period of 1-17 December 2024 alone, we have taken action against 122,699 online gambling content, accounts, and sites through public complaints, institutional reports, and active cyber patrols,” said Acting Director General of KPM Kemkomdigi, Molly Prabawati.
In the period from October 20 to December 17, 2024, Kemkomdigi blocked more than half a million contents, with details of 516,353 sites and IPs, 23,124 contents on the Meta platform, 12,728 on file sharing services, 4,963 on Google or YouTube, and thousands more on the X, Telegram, and TikTok platforms.
Kemkomdigi also took firm action against popular social media accounts such as @prabusports.ofc with 206 thousand followers and @asupan.goyang with 244 thousand followers, which were known to be involved in online gambling promotions.
“This firm step was taken to protect the public from the negative impacts of online gambling,” said Molly.
Kemkomdigi reminds the public about the recruitment mode of account collectors that is often used by online gambling syndicates. This mode offers large rewards for opening or lending bank accounts.
“Collector accounts are used to disguise illegal transaction activities, including money laundering practices.” He said.
In addition to the serious legal risks, account holders also face the potential for being blocked from banking services and facing financial reputation damage. Therefore, Kemkomdigi asks the public to be wary of such offers.
On the other hand, the Director of Protection of Indonesian Citizens at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Judha Nugraha, revealed the phenomenon of normalizing the online gambling industry as a source of livelihood.
“We see a tendency for job vacancy advertisements in this industry to become more explicit,” said Judha.
Judha added that Indonesian families who work as online gambling operators in Cambodia often know the purpose of the work from the start. This condition emphasizes the need for cross-party coordination to suppress the growth of this illegal industry.
With the government’s firm steps and active participation of the community, it is hoped that Indonesia’s digital space will be increasingly clean from the negative influence of online gambling. [*]