Meutya Hafid, the country’s communications and digital affairs minister, announced that accounts for under 16s on “high risk” platforms would be deactivated from 28 March.

“This will start with platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live, and Roblox,” said Hafid, adding that the ban would make Indonesia “the first non-Western country to delay children’s access to digital spaces according to age”.

There was no immediate response from the affected platforms.

“Our children are facing increasingly real threats—ranging from exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, and online scams, to addiction, which is the most significant concern,” said Hafid.

“The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of algorithm-driven platforms.”

Children’s charity Unicef reported in 2023 that roughly half of the 510 Indonesian children it surveyed had been exposed to sexual images on social media.

“As a working mum with two children, especially with a teenage son, I don’t have much time to constantly monitor what my son is doing in the digital world,” Amanda Kusumo, 42, told the BBC in response to news of the ban.

“With government regulations like this, it really helps ease our worries as parents,” she said, adding: “I’m confident that the government’s decision will ultimately bring positive benefits for both children and parents.”

Amanda’s 17-year-old son, Matt Joseph, said he saw the arguments both for and against the ban.

“It’s true that children still can’t fully manage their own screen time or control themselves when using their phones. But if the government chooses to completely block all platforms considered “risky” for them, I feel there might be a gentler, wiser way to approach it,” he said.

Matt Joseph feels that much of what young people enjoy comes from social media. If the government wants them to use it less, they need an incentive – such as improving what is available to watch on TV – he suggested.

“It would be nice to have entertainment that feels like it’s really meant for us, something that supports learning while still giving us joy.”

Indonesia’s child protection agency, meanwhile, said it could not comment on the government’s plans until it had studied them.

Nurul Izmi, at the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM), could not access the final draft of the regulation, but said in general that protecting children is not just about age restrictions, pointing out the European Union bans profiling ads targeting children.

“The basis of safe child protection regulation should also be safety by design,” she said.

Izmi also said implementing age verification means collecting children’s sensitive personal data, so it was crucial to ensure data collection follows the right principles.

She continued: “In protecting children in digital platforms, it’s essential not to overlook guarantees of access to information or children’s freedom of expression. In human rights, every restriction on rights must be based on lawfulness, necessity, and proportionality.”

The announcement comes after Australia became the first country to start forcing social media firms to block users under 16 from having accounts on their platforms in December – a policy being closely watched by other world governments.

Critics have called on the Australian government to extend the ban to cover online gaming sites like Roblox and Discord, which are not currently included.

There have also been concerns that age assurance technologies would wrongly block adults while failing to spot underage users.

Spain is among other countries that have said they will follow Australia’s lead.

Earlier this week, the UK launched a public consultation on whether to introduce a similar ban, inviting young people and their parents and guardians to submit comments ahead of a government decision on the proposal.

Indonesia has previously taken steps to prevent access to sexually explicit material online, including blocking access to the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok.

Other online sources of pornographic material, including OnlyFans and Pornhub, have also been banned in the country.

The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on social media: “Indonesia calls on all parties to exercise restraint and to prioritize dialogue and diplomacy.

“If agreed by both parties, the President of Indonesia is prepared to travel to Tehran to carry out mediation,” it said.

But President Prabowo’s offer to help mediate between the sides has provoked debate across Indonesia, coming at a time of increased criticism of his approach to foreign policy and warm ties with the Trump administration.

“I’m puzzled as to why this idea wasn’t vetted before being made public,” Dino Patti Djalal, Indonesia’s former deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to the US, said in a statement on Instagram.

“It is highly unrealistic,” Djalal said.

Others agreed, adding that the offer could further alienate Indonesians already wary of the president’s perceived cordial relationship with US President Donald Trump.

“It is clear that any negotiations between Iran and the US have completely ended, so to propose this seems to be not reading the room,” Ian Wilson, a lecturer in politics and security studies at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, told Al Jazeera.

“Domestically, people are likely to interpret this as a further alignment with Trump and therefore Netanyahu,” Wilson said.

In recent months, Prabowo has faced domestic scrutiny after volunteering to deploy 8,000 Indonesian troops to Gaza as part of an International Stabilization Force under the umbrella of Trump’s Board of Peace (BOP) – a so-called “international peacekeeping” organisation of which Israel is also a member.

Indonesia does not have any formal diplomatic relations with Israel, and has long supported an independent Palestine.

Joining Trump’s board and offering to participate in the US president’s plan for Gaza has not gone down well domestically.

“Indonesia is being used to legitimise the BOP’s dystopian plan to divide Gaza into quadrants and bypass the role of the United Nations,” Wilson said.

“For Indonesia to be involved fundamentally betrays its longstanding tradition of being a principled voice for the Global South, and its approach to foreign policy, which historically has been deeply respected,” he said.

Critics warn that the move could return Indonesia to the dark days of Suharto’s military dictatorship, which lasted 32 years until he was forced out of office in 1998.

The revisions backed by President Prabowo Subianto – a former special forces commander and Suharto’s son-in-law – allow military officers to take up positions in government without first retiring or resigning from the armed forces.

Hundreds of pro-democracy activists have camped outside parliament since Wednesday evening to protest at the changes.

“The essence of democracy is that the military should not engage in politics. The military should only manage barracks and national defence,” said Wilson, an activist with the Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared (KontraS), a group advocating for activists who disappeared during a crackdown in 1997 and 1998.

“Since 1998, there has been a creeping murder of democracy. And today marks its peak. Democracy has been killed by the House of Representatives,” Wilson told the BBC.

The revisions allow active military personnel to hold positions in 14 civilian institutions, up from 10. They also raise retirement age by several years for most ranks. Highest-ranking four-star generals can now serve until 63, up from 60.

By Thursday evening, the crowd of protesters outside parliament had grown to nearly a thousand. “Return the military to the barracks!” “Against militarism and oligarchy,” read the banners they held.

Police officers and military personnel stood guard around the protesters.

While there have been efforts over the past 25 years to limit the military’s involvement in politics and governance, local human rights watchdog Imparsial found that nearly 2,600 active-duty officers were serving in civilian roles even before the law’s revision.

The changes signal a “broader consolidation of power” under Prabowo, said Dedi Dinarto, lead Indonesia analyst at public policy advisory firm Global Counsel.

That the main opposition party endorsed the changes – despite initial opposition – further underscores this shift, he noted.

“By embedding military perspectives into civilian domains, the legislation could reshape Indonesia’s policy direction, potentially prioritising stability and state control over democratic governance and civil liberties,” Mr Dinarto said.

The armed forces’ “dual function”, where they are given control of security and administrative affairs, was central to Suharto’s regime.

For some Indonesians, Prabowo epitomises that authoritarian era. It was he who led the special forces unit accused of abducting activists in 1997 and 1998.

Many had feared that his return to political power and becoming president would erode Indonesia’s hard-won but fragile democracy.

Since taking office last October, Prabowo has already been expanding the military’s involvement in public areas. His flagship $4bn free-meal programme for children and pregnant women, for instance, receives logistical support from the armed forces.

Defending the amendments on Thursday, defence minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin told parliament “geopolitical changes and global military technology” require the military to transform to tackle “conventional and non conventional conflicts”.

“We will never disappoint the Indonesians in keeping our sovereignty,” he said.

However some rights groups argue that increasing military control in public affairs beyond defence will undermine impartiality.

“How can active-duty officers in the Attorney General’s Office remain impartial when they are still bound by military command?” asked Virdika Rizky Utama, a researcher at Jakarta-based think-tank PARA Syndicate, Benar News reports.

“If the military gains influence over the justice system, who will hold them accountable?”

“President Prabowo appears intent on restoring the Indonesian military’s role in civilian affairs, which were long characterised by widespread abuses and impunity,” said Andreas Harsono, senior Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The government’s rush to adopt these amendments undercuts its expressed commitment to human rights and accountability.”

KontraS also noted that the government’s “rush to amend the [law] stands in stark contrast to its prolonged inaction on other critical human rights commitments”.

“This long struggle cannot stop just because the law has been passed. There is only one word: Resist,” said Sukma Ayu, an undergraduate at Universitas Muhammadiyah Prof. Hamka in Jakarta.

“We will continue protesting until we claim victory… We have no choice but to occupy the ‘house of the people’,” she said.

Ratu Thalisa, a Muslim transgender woman with more than 442,000 TikTok followers, had been on a livestream, and was responding to a comment that told her to cut her hair to look more like a man.

On Monday, a court in Medan, Sumatra found Thalisa guilty of spreading hatred under a controversial online hate-speech law, and sentenced her to two years and 10 months in jail.

The court said her comments could disrupt “public order” and “religious harmony” in society, and charged her with committing blasphemy.

The court ruling came after multiple Christian groups filed police complaints against Ms Thalisa for blasphemy.

The sentence has been condemned by human rights groups, including Amnesty International, who described it as “a shocking attack on Ratu Thalisa’s freedom of expression” and called for it to be quashed.

“The Indonesian authorities should not use the country’s Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) law to punish people for comments made on social media,” Amnesty International Indonesia’s Executive Director Usman Hamid said in a statement.

“While Indonesia should prohibit the advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, Ratu Thalisa’s speech act does not reach that threshold.”

Mr Hamid called on Indonesian authorities to overturn Ms Thalisa’s conviction and ensure her immediate release from custody.

He also urged them to repeal or make substantial revisions to what he described as “problematic provisions” in the EIT Law – namely, those criminalising alleged immorality, defamation and hate speech.

First introduced in 2008 and amended in 2016 to address online defamation, the EIT Law was designed to safeguard the rights of individuals in online spaces.

It has been roundly criticised, however, by rights groups, press groups and legal experts, who have long raised concerns about the law’s potential threat to freedom of expression.

At least 560 people were charged with alleged violations of the EIT Law while exercising their freedom of expression between 2019 and 2024, and 421 were convicted, according to data from Amnesty International.

Those charged with offenses of defamation and hate speech have included several social media influencers.

In September 2023, a Muslim woman was sentenced to two years’ prison for blaspheming Islam, after she posted a viral TikTok video where she said an Islamic phrase before eating pork.

In 2024, another TikToker was detained for blasphemy after they posted a quiz asking children what kind of animals can read the Quran, according to Amnesty International.

Indonesia is home to many religious minorities, including Buddhists, Christians and Hindus. But a vast majority of Indonesians are Muslim – and most cases of people found in violation of the EIT Law have typically related to religious minorities allegedly insulting Islam.

Ms Thalisa’s case, where a Muslim woman is accused of invoking hate speech against Christianity, is less common.

Prosecutors previously demanded that she receive a sentence of more than four years, and immediately appealed Monday’s verdict. Ms Thalisa was given seven days to appeal.

Serge Atlaoui, 61, was accused of being a “chemist” by Indonesian authorities and arrested in 2005 at a factory in Jakarta, where dozens of kilos (pounds) of drugs were found.

An agreement was made between Indonesia and France on 24 January to extradite the father-of-four on “humanitarian grounds” because he has cancer and has been receiving weekly treatment at a hospital.

“It’s a miracle,” his wife Sabine Atlaoui told France’s RTL radio. “He survived 19 years of incarceration. He survived an execution.”

The 61-year-old washanded over to French police at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta and took off on a commercial flight to Paris at 19:35 local time (12:35 GMT), an official told the AFP news agency.

When he lands on Wednesday morning, Atlaoui will be presented to prosecutors “and most likely detained while awaiting a decision” about his future sentencing, his lawyer Richard Sedillot told AFP.

In France, the maximum punishment for a similar crime is 30 years, Indonesia human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told Reuters.

It will be up to Paris to grant “clemency, amnesty or a reduced sentence”, he said.

Mr Sedillot told AFP he was “delighted” with the extradition and “will now work to ensure that the sentence is adapted to conditions which will allow his release.”

Atlaoui told his family he does not want to meet them at the airport, his wife said.

“He wants to see his family again when he is free,” she told RTL. “Unfortunately, we do not know how long it will take.”

Atlaoui, a welder from Metz in north-eastern France, has always denied being a drug trafficker.

He claimed to be installing machinery in an acrylic factory, but told AFP in 2015 he “thought there was something suspicious”.

Originally sentenced to life in prison, the verdict was changed to death on appeal by the Indonesian supreme court.

His execution was scheduled for 2015, but paused thanks to pressure from the French government.

Recently, Indonesia has released a number of high-profile detainees imprisoned under the country’s strict drug laws.

Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina mother who spent nearly 15 years on death row for carrying 2.6kg (5.7lb) of heroin through an Indonesian airport, was extradited in December.

The five remaining members of the “Bali Nine” drug ring returned to Australia the same month.

There are currently 90 foreigners still on death row in the country, including one woman, according to the Ministry of Immigration and Correction.

Analysts said that Prabowo’s approach to foreign policy will differ significantly from his predecessor – ex-President Joko Widodo, better known as “Jokowi” – whose term in office was focused more on attracting foreign investment to Indonesia and building export markets, than on defence spending and international affairs.

As competition mounts between China and the United States in the Asia Pacific region, just how far the 73-year-old President Prabowo will take Indonesia in a new foreign policy direction remains to be seen.

“Unlike Jokowi, who largely delegated foreign affairs and security matters, Prabowo, through his defence minister, will drive more opportunities with the Pentagon,” Natalie Sambhi, an Indonesia expert and executive director of Verve Research, told Al Jazeera.

“Thatsaid, we have early signs that Indonesia is looking to deepen its relationship with China, including resuming military exercises,” Sambhi said.

“We have five years to see whether the complexity and frequency of military exercises with the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army evolves in ways that rival the intensity with the US military,” she said.

While it raised some eyebrows at the time, Prabowo’s early choice of state visits upon securing Indonesia’s presidency gave away little of his strategic thinking for Indonesia’s place in a region of rapidly evolving military competition.

He visited Australia in August and Russia in September as Indonesia’s president-elect.

That was followed by a visit to China in November when he was elected president. Shortly after, he travelled to Washington, DC, where he met with US President Joe Biden, capping the visit with a phone call to the US’s president-elect Donald Trump.

In late November, Prabowo visited the United Kingdom and met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and King Charles.

Zachary Abuza, a lecturer in Southeast Asian politics and security at the National War College in Washington, DC, said the decision to visit Russia and China ahead of the US “certainly raised some alarm bells about what he is going to do with the bilateral relationship”.

But the order of the countries that Prabowo chose to visit could have also been more an issue of logistics and timing than a symbolic indication of strategic intent as a visit to the US would have been complicated while the country was in the middle of a presidential election campaign in October and early November, Abuza said.

What is certain, according to Abuza, is that “Prabowo is going to be a different figure” when it comes to foreign policy and the new Indonesian president may also mean a strengthened Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] amid the regional rivalry between Beijing and Washington.

Prabowo “understands that ASEAN is more effective with a stronger Indonesia at the helm”, Abuza said.

Sambhi of Verve Research said that analysts would likely be looking at how Indonesia under Prabowo might deepen and diversify its regional security partnerships away from the twin poles of Washington and Beijing.

Other security partners for Indonesia may include Australia, France, India, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam, Sambhi said.

“The more Indonesia does with other middle and emerging Indo-Pacific powers, the better for the region in mitigating the impact of US-China rivalry,” she said.

Prabowo comes to Indonesia’s top job with a diverse portfolio and a chequered reputation in some of the Western countries that may now be eager to build a new security relationship as a counterbalance to China.

Born in Jakarta in 1951, Prabowo began his military career in 1970, when he enrolled in the Indonesian Military Academy, and from which he graduated in 1974 before joining the Indonesian Special Forces Command (Kopassus).

Throughout his military career, he was accused of a string of human rights abuses while in active service, including accusations of abuses in East Timor and Indonesia’s West Papua, as well as involvement in the bloody race riots in 1998 during the fall of then-president Soeharto – of whom he was once a son-in-law.

Prabowo denied involvement in the abductions of student activists during Soeharto’s rule and while he has never stood trial, the allegations of abuses and rights violations saw him banned from travelling to the US and Australia for almost two decades.

Prabowo travel ban was quietly overturned by Washington in 2020 when he was named Indonesian defence minister by Jokowi.

Australia also dropped its ban on Prabowo in 2014 when Canberra too hastily predicted that he was on the cusp of securing the Indonesian presidency on his first attempt a decade ago.

Australia ‘yoking itself exclusively to the US’Australia’s relationship with Indonesia remains complex.

In August, both countries signed a defence cooperation agreement described as “historic”.

But the relationship between Indonesia and Australia will be one to watch as Prabowo tries to steer a middle path between China and the West, said Ian Wilson, a lecturer in politics and security studies at Perth’s Murdoch University.

Indonesia was one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, and has a “bebas-aktif” or “free and active” approach to foreign policy, which means that it does not align itself with any major power bloc – choosing instead to work with everyone, Wilson told Al Jazeera.

Australia however, has new regional security commitments under AUKUS – the trilateral defence partnership between Australia, the UK and the US in the Asia Pacific region. That agreement means that Australia is effectively “operating as a front line for the US in the region”, Wilson said.

“Through AUKUS, Australia has an ongoing commitment to align with the US and there will be anxiety about what that means with Prabowo, as Indonesia will deal with everyone,” Wilson said.

“By visiting Russia and China, [Prabowo] made the point that Indonesia sees all of them as partners, whereas Australia has been yoking itself exclusively to the US,” he said.

“How will Australia navigate that, especially with the ramping up of tensions with China and Australia?

“Prabowo and Indonesia’s broader approach might be seen as a headache now that Australia has narrowed down its alignments, and AUKUS is the embodiment of that,” Wilson added.

Interviewed in 2022, then-Defence Minister Prabowo gave some valuable insight when he spoke of Indonesia’s close relationship with the US, and its historically closer one with China.

“We have good cooperation with both powers — I have said that many times,” he said, speaking on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, an annual security summit organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“The United States has helped us many times, in our critical moments. But China has also helped us. China has also defended us and China is now a very close partner with Indonesia,” he said.

“And actually, China has always been the leading civilisation in Asia. Many of our sultans, kings, our princes in those days, they would marry princesses from China. We have hundreds of years of relationship,” he added.

“So, you asked me, what is our position, as good friends we try to be, maybe a good common bridge”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote on social media: “I am pleased to confirm that Australian citizens, Si Yi Chen, Michael Czugaj, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush and Martin Stephens have returned to Australia this afternoon.”

He thanked Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto “for his compassion”.

The high-profile case began in 2005 when Indonesia caught nine young Australians trying to smuggle 8.3kg (18lb) of heroin out of Bali.

The eight men and one woman were arrested at an airport and hotel in Bali after a tip-off from Australian police.

The case made news worldwide when two of the gang’s ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed by firing squad in 2015 – sparking a row with Australia.

After the executions, Australia recalled its ambassador to Indonesia, although he returned to Jakarta five weeks later.

Other members of the Bali Nine were handed life terms in prison.

The case put a spotlight on Indonesia’s strict drug laws, some of the most stringent in the world.One of the nine, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died of cancer in 2018. Shortly afterwards, Renae Lawrence, then 41, the only woman among the group, had her sentence commuted after spending almost 13 years in prison.

Australia’s government said of the five men’s return: “The men will have the opportunity to continue their personal rehabilitation and reintegration in Australia.

“It expressed “deep appreciation” to Indonesia for allowing them to return home on humanitarian grounds.

Australian broadcaster ABC has reported that the men are effectively free to live unhindered in Australian society.

Torrential rains since last week caused rivers to burst their banks, tearing through more than 170 villages in the Sukabumi district of West Java province, as mud, rocks and trees tumbled down mountainside hamlets, Lieutenant Colonel Yudi Hariyanto, who heads a rescue command post in Sukabumi, said on Monday.

Landslides, flash floods and strong winds devastated 172 villages and forced more than 3,000 people to flee to temporary government shelters, Hariyanto said. Authorities have warned nearly 1,000 people to evacuate as more than 400 houses are threatened by extreme weather.

The disasters also destroyed 31 bridges, 81 roads and 539 hectares (1,332 acres) of rice fields, while 1,170 houses were flooded up to the roof.

Extreme weather has also damaged more than 3,300 other houses and buildings, the local disaster management agency said.

On  Monday, rescue workers pulled out 10 bodies in the worst-hit villages of Tegalbuleud, Simpenan and Ciemas, including three children, and rescuers are searching for two villagers who are reportedly still missing, Hariyanto said.

Videos circulating on social media showed flash floods caused by heavy downpours in Sukabumi sweeping away almost everything in their path, including cars, motorcycles, buffaloes and cows.

Footage released by West Java’s Search and Rescue Agency showed roads that were transformed into murky brown rivers and villages covered by thick mud, rocks and uprooted trees as soldiers, police and rescue workers pulled mud-caked bodies from a devastated hamlet.

The archipelago of 17,000 islands is bracing for severe weather, as state meteorologists have detected three tropical cyclone systems that could bring heavy rainfall to various regions.

Extreme weather is expected to affect areas in western and eastern Indonesia over the next few days, causing significant rainfall and high waves.

Last month, flash floods and landslides in North Sumatra province killed at least 29 people. Flash floods hit the provincial city of Medan, forcing a delay in votes for regional elections in some areas.