Indonesia Introduces New Regulations on Social Media

Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced on Tuesday that Indonesia is issuing new regulations regarding the use of social media to sell goods in the country.

According to Reuters, the decision was triggered by authorities’ increasing concerns regarding threats to offline markets posed by e-commerce sellers using predatory pricing on social media platforms. The new regulation adds to existing regulations that do not specifically address direct transactions on social media.

These current rules have already brought into the spotlight TikTok’s ‘live’ features, allowing people to sell goods, which have lead Deputy Trade Minister Jerry Sambuaga to state that “social media and social commerce cannot be combined” and implement a ban on the mix of the two.

TikTok Indonesia’s spokesperson soon released a statement expressing their respect for the local laws and regulations, but also highlighting the importance of their app for local sellers, connecting them with local creators to direct their traffic to their online shops. The TikTok statement further stated that the platform had an impressive number of Southeast Asian users active every month, of whom 125 million were in Indonesia.

Source: Reuters