Indonesian authorities to meet with Google over online gambling

The communications and information minister wants to discuss using AI to tackle online gambling.

Indonesia.- Budie Arie, Indonesia’s communication and informatics minister, announced this week that he will meet with representatives from Google to discuss the possible use of artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle online gambling.

In February, Arie met with representatives from the Singapore office of X, formerly Twitter, to discuss the automatic removal of gambling ads.

In May, president Joko Widodo ordered Arie to set up a task force to eradicate online gambling. The integrated unit working across ministries and institutions is headed by the coordinating minister for policy, law and security, Hadi Tjahjanto.

According to Antara News, between July 17, 2023 and May 22 this year, authorities took down 1,918,520 pieces of online gambling content. Soe 18,877 online gambling page insertions on educational sites and 22,714 online gambling page insertions on government sites were taken down.

See also: Indonesia: 142 arrested for alleged illegal online gambling

Gambling is banned in Indonesia and is illegal for both citizens and foreigners. There are no legal casinos in the country and anyone found gambling can face severe fines and even imprisonment.