JAKARTA, Indonesia-One evening, in mid-June, Imam Safingi received an email from the X social media platform, informing him that the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs asked that his data visualization company, Perupadata, withdraws an article. The post, according to the ministry, violated Indonesian law.
The post presented a quote from the Minister of Culture Fadli Zon questioning the truth of mass rapes which occurred during the Indonesian riots of 1998, which led to the eviction of President Soeharto. In the position, Perupadata contrasted this assertion with a report published by the National Commission on violence against women.
“Our intention is simply to show that the facts indicate an event that the manager denies,” explains Safingi.
Perupadata is not alone. Another digital point of sale focusing on historical content, Neohistoria Indonesia, has received a similar withdrawal of X after assignment on mass rapes of 1998.
These cases reflect a wider diagram. The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs used X -content moderation policies – intended to remove harmful content – to also eliminate political and social discourse, including mass rapes of 1998, as well as government criticism and environmental issues.
During the first half of 2025 only, the ministry requested the abolition of 186,496 pieces of “negative content”. While the platforms processed 76.3% of these requests, according to government figures, all the content was not ultimately deleted.
Safingi did not comply with X’s request to delete the post. This does not violate any laws, he said. So far, he adds, the government has not made any additional request.
In Indonesia, he says, the moderation of the ministry’s content is “very vulnerable to be used as an authoritarian tool”.
Under national regulations, the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs requires that social media platforms abolish what it considers negative content. Social media platforms must establish offices in Indonesia, appoint government links and delete content or terminate users at the request of the ministry. In total, 17 platforms are required to comply with the ministry’s requests.
The ministry initiates the use of a request to ensure that each platform meets the requirements and obeys requests for withdrawal. The program remains in a test phase until October, after which non-compliant platforms face sanctions ranging from fines to complete blocking.
“In the digital surveillance sector, the most difficult function is to maintain the balance between democracy and protection,” explains Mediodecci Luscarini, known as IDES, the head of the ministry supervising the program.
The ministry targets what it classifies as a “negative content”, which includes terrorism, pornography, game and material related to race, religion or background. Although the ministry leads its own social media monitoring, it also deals with complaints from other government institutions.
Posts of Perupadata and Neohistoria Indonesia were reported by other government institutions to the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs. This ministry checked each report before sending requests to the platform. The articles which are intended for deletion, according to Ides, are linked to “sensitive problems of race, religion and ethnicity”.
Ides denies that the ministry’s content moderation program eliminates freedom of expression.
“We are open to each constructive contribution, in particular to strengthen the regulations and freedoms linked to the end of access,” she says.
The ministry refused to disclose detailed data on its moderation activities, including the specific type of content it has moderated this year. Nor did he reveal the reason why he asked for perupadata and Neohistoria Indonesia posts.
Daniel Limantara, the founder of Neohistoria Indonesia, recognizes that the post of his organization contained content related to the race because he notes that the mass rapes of 1998 have targeted Chinese Indonesian women.
But this content is a historical fact, not hate speeches, he says.
“If we have made a mistake, tell us what is the error. It is not our job to endure you the explanation, ”he says.
Government’s efforts to moderate the politically sensitive content he is trying to erase is now a model, explains Nenden Sekar Arum, executive director of the Southeast Asian Liberty Network, called Safenet.
In the Neohistoria Indonesia case, the digital point of sale has published similar content On Facebook in 2020, but received no withdrawal requests. In another case in June of this year, a researcher, Zakki Amali, received a withdrawal request concerning his job About the exploitation of nickel in the west of Papua. Amali frequently posted nickel problems in Indonesia, but he only received demand when the problem has become a subject of trend in national media and social media in Indonesia.
The moderation of the content of the government, says Amali, is a “shortcut to defuse the situation or to suppress public discourse on the questions”.
Safingi, of Perupadata, says that the moderation of the content has the potential to radically change the country.
“Indonesia being a democratic country – and I hope it is really democratic – it will endanger democracy itself,” he said.