August 31, 2025 | 05:19 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Director General of Digital Space Supervision at the Ministry of Communication and Digital, Alexander Sabar, emphasized that the ministry did not instruct TikTok to limit its live feature amid the escalating protests in Indonesia. "That's from TikTok itself," said Alexander Sabar on August 31, 2025.
Since the demonstrations demanding the dissolution of the DPR, among other things, intensified on August 25, 2025, the live broadcast feature on TikTok has become limited. Participants of the mass demonstrations could not activate this feature to report the turbulent development on site.
Alexander said the ministry is currently reviewing TikTok's social media policy, which restricts the live feature in Indonesia. He mentioned that the temporary findings show that TikTok's live feature contains several inappropriate contents.
"There are many instances of provocative calls and hate speech against specific individuals and ethnic groups," Sabar told Tempo.
The Ministry of Communication and Digital also identified accounts suspected of being affiliated with online gambling that often promote such activities, which contributes to the worsening situation and "endangers the people."
But he admitted that not all live broadcasts on TikTok are inappropriate. "TikTok's live technology supports the implementation of democracy," he said.
Sabar will soon communicate with TikTok regarding these findings.
TikTok Announces Suspension of Live Broadcasts
Recently, TikTok announced the temporary freezing of the live streaming feature in Indonesia for several days due to widespread demonstrations and accompanying riots and looting.
"Due to the escalating violence of demonstrations in Indonesia, we have voluntarily implemented additional safeguards to maintain TikTok as a civil and safe space," a TikTok spokesperson told AFP, as reported by The Economic Times on Saturday, August 30, 2025.
The video-sharing app, owned by China's ByteDance, stated that it will continue to monitor developments in Indonesia.
The restriction of TikTok's live feature came after Deputy Minister of Communication and Digital Angga Raka Prabowo planned to summon social media platform providers such as Meta and TikTok. The summoning will address the handling of provocative content found on social media.
Damar Juniarto, Director of the Indonesian Anti-Digital Disinformation Working Group, suspects that the restriction of TikTok's live feature on content featuring demonstrations in the country was at the government's request.
Damar believes the implementation of this policy demonstrates unilateral content moderation.
"This is called censorship, and this kind of censorship certainly hinders democracy," Damar told Tempo on August 31, 2025.
Eka Yudha Saputra contributed to the writing of this article
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