New Content Moderation rules in Indonesia’s Broadcasting Bill

Indonesia's Draft Broadcasting Bill proposes to significantly expand the existing broadcasting framework to take account of digital broadcasting and the development of internet-based platforms.

The Bill is intended to amend Law No. 32 of 2002 on Broadcasting and expressly brings the operation of Digital Platforms within the scope of the proposed broadcasting framework. The broadcasting bill defines a “Digital Platform” as a telecommunications information facility that facilitates direct interaction between digital-platform operators and users for the exchange or acquisition of Digital Content. It further defines a Digital Platform Operator as any individual or business entity, whether domestic or foreign, that manages and/or presents Digital Content through Over-the-Top (OTT) and/or User Generated Content (UGC) platforms. (Article 1(17)– (19)).

1. Registration and Content Governance Requirements

Under Article 34A, Digital Platform Operators would cover OTT and UGC services and would include services such as live broadcasting, delayed broadcasting, video-on-demand and audio-on-demand. Article 34B would require Digital Platform Operators to register with the Minister before their internet-based broadcasting services are made available to users in Indonesia. The registration requirement is intended to ensure accountability, the quality of broadcast content, the reliability and security of the platform's operational system and the protection of the public interest.

The registration requirements under Article 34C(1) go beyond basic corporate or licensing information. Among other things, platforms would be required to provide information concerning the platform and person responsible for its operation, an Indonesian domicile and contact details, information concerning its operations and business model, and commitments relating to information security and personal data protection. More importantly from a content-moderation perspective, Article 34C(1)(e) requires a commitment to provide mechanisms for reporting, content screening/moderation and takedown of Digital Content that violates Indonesian laws. Platforms would also be required to provide periodic transparency reports concerning unlawful Digital Content and establish accountability, transparency, complaint-handling and algorithm-audit mechanisms under Article 34C(1)(f)–(g).

The Draft Bill distinguishes between OTT and UGC platforms when setting out the additional registration requirements. For OTT platforms, Article 34C(2) requires, among other things, a catalogue of Digital Content, mechanisms for content curation and classification, age-verification systems for restricted Digital Content, and child and family protection mechanisms. For UGC platforms, Article 34C(3) specifically requires community guidelines, technology-based and/or manual content-moderation systems, mechanisms for users to report Digital Content, and digital-literacy programmes for users and content creators.

The Draft Bill also imposes additional requirements on foreign Digital Platform Operators. Under Article 34D, a foreign platform providing broadcasting services in Indonesia would be required to register with the Minister and, among other things, have a representative and legal entity in Indonesia, provide at least 25% local content, maintain a dispute-resolution mechanism accessible to Indonesian users, submit to Indonesian jurisdiction and comply with Indonesian tax requirements.

2. The prohibited content includes IP infringing content

Article 34J(1) provides that Digital Platform Operators are prohibited from facilitating the circulation of Digital Content that violates Indonesian laws. Article 34J(2) then identifies various categories of prohibited material. These include pornography, violence and sadistic content that exploits or degrades human dignity; discriminatory or inflammatory content based on characteristics such as race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender or disability; gambling; products prohibited by law; hoaxes, defamation and insults; incitement to unlawful conduct or conduct endangering public order and national security; and, expressly infringement of intellectual property rights (see article 34 J(2) letter g).

3. What Are Platforms Required to Do with Prohibited Content?

The Draft Bill goes beyond simply identifying prohibited categories.

Under Article 34J (3), Digital Platform Operators must prevent Digital Content from containing the prohibited material listed in Article 34J(2). Under Article 34J (4), this prevention must be carried out through moderation, filtering and removal/takedown mechanisms that are quick, effective and responsible.

This is potentially significant for IP enforcement because the obligation is imposed directly on the platform. Once IP infringement is classified as prohibited Digital Content under Article 34J(2)(g), the platform's obligation to prevent and remove prohibited Digital Content potentially extends to that IP-infringing content.

However, the Draft Bill does not appear to establish a new standalone copyright or IP takedown procedure for rights holders. In other words, Article 34J does not appear to say that a copyright or trademark owner has a new statutory right to submit a takedown request in the same way that a specific copyright enforcement provision might establish a reporting procedure. Instead, the obligation is framed as a regulatory obligation imposed on Digital Platform Operators.

This distinction should be maintained when considering whether the Draft Bill gives IP owners a “new option”. It may provide an additional practical route for reporting and seeking removal of infringing content, because platforms would be required to operate moderation and takedown systems. But the Draft Bill does not, on its face, replace or establish a separate private IP enforcement mechanism.

4. Community Guidelines and Internal Moderation

The Draft Bill also requires platforms to develop their own internal content-governance framework.

Under Article 34K(1), Digital Platform Operators must prepare community guidelines concerning Digital Content that is permitted and prohibited under Indonesian law. These guidelines must refer to the prohibited-content categories under Article 34J (Article 34K(2)), and platforms must take preventive action or remove Digital Content that violates those guidelines (Article 34K(3)).

This is particularly relevant to UGC platforms because the Draft Bill does not appear to rely solely on Government enforcement after unlawful content has been identified. Instead, it requires platforms to establish their own rules and internal systems for identifying and addressing prohibited content.

Accordingly, the proposed framework could require platforms to incorporate IP infringement into their community guidelines and moderation systems, in addition to their existing policies and procedures under other applicable regimes.

5. Sanctions and Government Enforcement

The proposed moderation obligations are backed by significant administrative sanctions.

Under Article 34J(5), a Digital Platform Operator that facilitates prohibited material, fails to prevent prohibited Digital Content or fails to implement the required moderation, filtering and takedown mechanisms may be subject to a written warning, administrative fine, takedown of the Digital Content and/or access blocking of the relevant electronic system.

Separately, Article 34E(1) provides sanctions where a Digital Platform Operator fails to register or fails to comply with the relevant obligations under Articles 34C and 34D. These sanctions include a written warning, administrative fine, temporary suspension of Digital Platform services and/or access blocking of all Digital Platform services in Indonesia. The Draft Bill further provides that access blocking under Article 34E may be imposed in specified circumstances, including where a platform fails to register following a warning and temporary suspension, provides false registration information, or breaches certain obligations applicable to foreign platforms (Article 34E(3)).

The significance of these provisions is that the proposed regime is not simply a set of voluntary content-moderation standards. It creates regulatory obligations backed by potential Government enforcement measures, including suspension and access blocking.

6. What Happens After Access Blocking?

The Draft Bill also provides a mechanism through which a Digital Platform Operator may seek restoration of access.

Under Article 34L, a platform whose access has been blocked may apply to the Minister for normalisation of the access restriction. The platform must first satisfy the applicable requirements, including permanently deleting the Digital Content that gave rise to the blocking, paying the administrative fine, providing a written commitment to comply with the Draft Bill and implementing a tested internal mechanism designed to prevent similar violations from recurring.

This further demonstrates the emphasis placed by the Draft Bill on platforms maintaining effective internal content-governance mechanisms, rather than relying solely on case-by-case responses to individual complaints.

The Draft Bill also provides that Digital Platform Operators may appeal administrative sanctions to the administrative court (Article 34K (6)).

7. Interaction with Existing IP and Online Content-Regulation Mechanisms

For IP owners, the main issue is therefore how the proposed framework would interact with the existing ITE/PSE and Copyright regimes.

The Draft Bill does not appear to repeal or replace the existing copyright-specific mechanisms. Instead, it introduces another regulatory layer applicable to Digital Platform Operators. The same IP-infringing content could potentially therefore be addressed through an existing copyright mechanism, an ITE/PSE mechanism, and/or the platform's content-moderation and takedown procedures under the proposed Broadcasting framework.

This could potentially give rights holders another practical avenue for seeking removal of online infringing content. However, the precise relationship between these mechanisms remains uncertain from the current Draft Bill. In particular, the Draft Bill does not clearly set out how a takedown request under the proposed Broadcasting framework would interact procedurally with a copyright-specific complaint or with other Government-directed content-removal mechanisms.

The implementing regulations may therefore be important in determining whether the different mechanisms operate independently, whether one mechanism takes precedence, and whether platforms would be required to follow different procedures depending on the legal basis relied upon for the takedown.

From the platform's perspective, this could also create additional compliance complexity. Platforms may need to maintain moderation and takedown systems capable of addressing different categories of prohibited content, while also complying with existing obligations under other Indonesian laws. The Draft Bill expressly requires transparency reports, complaint-handling mechanisms and algorithm-audit systems, which could add further governance requirements beyond the substantive obligation to remove prohibited content.

8. Other Digital-Content Requirements

There are also provisions in the Draft Bill that are related to Digital Content but are separate from the core content-moderation regime. For example, Article 34H requires Digital Platform Operators to operate electronic systems and produce Digital Content that meet principles of reliability, security and responsibility. It also contemplates Government, platform and user supervision of the use of AI in Digital Content, including requirements concerning AI-generated-content labelling, automated detection and AI auditing, with further provisions to be set out by Ministerial Regulation.

Separately, Article 6A provides that broadcasting may be supported through AI technology and requires Broadcasting Institutions and Digital Platform Operators to disclose the use of AI in Broadcast Content or Digital Content, with further requirements to be regulated by Ministerial Regulation. This is a separate regulatory issue from the content-moderation provisions and may be worth addressing separately if the focus is specifically on content moderation.

9. Key Takeaway for IP Owners

The main point from an IP perspective is that the Draft Broadcasting Bill would introduce a broader digital-content governance framework in which IP infringement is expressly identified as prohibited content. The proposed rules are therefore not limited to copyright. They would apply to a wide range of unlawful or prohibited Digital Content and would require Digital Platform Operators to establish reporting, moderation, filtering and takedown mechanisms.

For IP owners, the potential significance is that these platform-level obligations could provide an additional practical channel for reporting and seeking removal of IP-infringing content. However, it would be more accurate to characterise this as an additional platform-regulation mechanism rather than a new standalone IP enforcement or copyright takedown right.

For Digital Platform Operators, the proposed framework could create an additional layer of compliance alongside the existing ITE/PSE and Copyright regimes. The extent of the overlap, and whether the proposed Broadcasting framework will ultimately provide a materially different or more effective route for removal of IP-infringing content, will depend in part on the implementing regulations and how the different mechanisms are applied in practice.

(By Lukman Basir and Kenita Abyani, Rouse Indonesia)