Two Southeast Asian countries have enlisted the aid of major social media platforms in their fight against illegal online gambling ads.
According to Asia Gaming Brief, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has asked social media giant X, formerly Twitter, to discuss stricter measures against the ads. The request was issued by Budie Arie, Indonesia’s communication and informatics minister.
Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the ministry’s director general of Informatics Applications, noted that such ads continue to appear on X, despite previous warnings. The ministers want X to do more to identify illegal gambling-related and create a system to automatically detect and delete it, rather than handling recurring reports.
“We notify them to take down, but if it’s repeated, it’s tiring, so we ask them to develop (automated procedures),” said Pangerapan. That way, “if similar content is found, we don’t need to ask them again, and the content is automatically removed.”
AGB said Indonesia is a “longtime attractive market for online gambling operators willing to target its young and growing population.” In 2023, authorities blocked almost 500,000 websites and gambling ads.
At the same time, messaging app Telegram—which is used by about 15 million people in Malaysia—has vowed to cooperate with authorities in that country fighting illegal online gambling. The pledge followed a meeting in Dubai between Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov met with Malaysian Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil in Dubai.
Telegram has gained popularity due to its privacy and encryption measures—but the same protections have attracted illegal gambling operators and scammers.
