The 2024 election of Prabowo Subianto as President, along with the looming implementation of a new Criminal Code and proposed revisions to the 2002 Broadcasting Bill, led to a fear of new restrictions on investigative journalism and other forms of free expression. Civil society groups also noted the president’s statements about ‘foreign-funded media’, and expressed concern that this was another indication of illiberal populism and democratic backsliding.

As Prabowo Subianto was sworn in as the president of the world’s third largest democracy in October, the use of social media as a source of news continued to exceed print and TV. Although the February election gave a temporary boost to legacy media, there was an overall decline of interest in all sources of news, including both online and social media.

On the first anniversary of his election Prabowo alleged that foreign-funded media organisations were trying to ‘divide’ the country.¹ That same day, protesters demanded that the Indonesian Press Council take action against Tempo, accusing it of acting in the interest of billionaire financier George Soros.² Three weeks later a severed pig’s head was sent to Francisca Christy Rosana, a co-host of Tempo’s popular podcast programme, Bocor Alus Politik (Slow Leak in Politics).³ One of Indonesia’s most internationally recognised media brands, its flagship magazine Tempo was famously banned in 1994. It returned to print in 1998 with the fall of Soeharto and the start of the Reform Era.

Although there were no major closures of media outlets in 2024, Indonesian media continued to suffer a loss of advertising revenue. As part of his populist platform, the new president promised a school-based free lunch programme, which required 306.7 trillion rupiah ($3.1bn) cuts in the overall state budget. This had unanticipated effects on the health of news organisations, as government advertising at both the national and provincial level dried up. This reduction led Indonesian media companies to experiment with new partnerships, e-payment models, and the use of artificial intelligence, as media organisations started using AI for everything from headline-writing and keywords to artificial news presenters and AI-generated Muslim prayer readings.

In April 2023, TVOne launched TVOneAI, now available on multiple social media platforms, which advertises itself as ‘the first artificial intelligence-supported media in Indonesia’. Liputan6 likewise uses AI for sports, fact-checking, and global news. While some journalists and industry observers expressed concern about the possible loss of jobs, others were more sanguine, noting that AI presenters could not replace reporting from the field.

Legal protections for freedom of expression continued to erode, leading to concerns among journalists and civil society groups. Planned revisions to Indonesia’s 2002 Broadcasting Bill proposed stringent controls over digital journalism, including investigative reporting and content related to the political interests of a digital platform’s owner. Other restrictions include the broadcasting of content that portrays LGBTQ ‘behaviour’, or other ‘negative behaviours or lifestyles that could potentially be imitated by the public’. The bill has been criticised as contravening rights enshrined in the 1999 Press Law, namely that the Indonesian press is ‘not subject’ to censorship or broadcasting bans, and that the press has the right to ‘seek, obtain, and disseminate ideas and information’.⁴

Meanwhile, the new Criminal Code is less than one year away from being implemented and will replace the existing law, which is a carry-over from the Dutch colonial period. The Indonesian Press Council has noted that the new law, which will come into effect after a three-year waiting period, has 17 articles that have the capacity to threaten press freedom.

The past few years have witnessed other encroachments on digital expression in Indonesia, including the 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions Law (ITE), and Ministerial Regulation 5 (MR5), which grants the government authority to regulate private electronic systems operators (ESOs), Indonesian services and platforms, and multinational companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and TikTok.

Social media sites such as WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are extremely popular in Indonesia, and 57% of Indonesians report getting their news from these platforms. TikTok in particular gained in popularity as a source for news – jumping up 5pp to 34%. Although the use of WhatsApp declined somewhat (by 3pp) it continued to dominate as the overall social media platform both for news and for any purpose.  

Although Indonesians are generally unwilling to pay for news, there was some experimentation with new models. Tempo, for example, has created a partnership with provincial media such as The Aceh Post where they both share content and allow readers to subscribe to both online publications for a single price.

Janet Steele
Professor of Media and Public Affairs and International Affairs, George Washington University

Overall trust in news remains stable along with trust in most of the individual brands for which data exist. There was one key exception – Tempo – which lost 4pp, possibly as the result of attacks by the president.

Footnotes