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Resty Woro Yuniar

Indonesia’s latest plan to clamp down on violent video games in the wake of a mosque bombing has reignited a long-running debate over the impact of digital media on young minds and whether regulation alone can stem an apparent rise in bullying and online radicalisation.
President Prabowo Subianto called for restrictions on games that “normalise violence” following a November 7 blast at a North Jakarta high school mosque that injured nearly 100 students during Friday prayers.
Prasetyo Hadi, head of the Ministry of State Secretariat, told reporters two days later that Prabowo had instructed officials “to think about limiting and trying to find solutions to the [negative] effects of online [video] games”.
He specifically cited the wildly popular battle royale shooter PUBG: Battlegrounds, developed by South Korean firm Krafton, warning that its user-friendly gameplay and focus on combat made it a bad influence on impressionable young people.


“Take PUBG, for example. We may restrict it. There are various types of weapons [in the game] and it’s very easy to learn, making it even more dangerous. Psychologically, people become accustomed to violence,” Prasetyo said.
Abdul Muti, the minister of primary and secondary education, said on November 11 that he had previously proposed curbs on violent games, though he cautioned that video games could also serve as “a medium for education”.
Any restriction, he said, would need the involvement of at least four ministries, including the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs, which has regulatory authority.
The government has flirted with similar measures before. In August, Prabowo’s administration threatened to block Roblox, a global platform allowing users to create and play games, unless it improved child protections.
Roblox eventually “affirmed their willingness to comply with Indonesian regulations”, Communications Minister Meutya Hafid confirmed in September.
In January, the government said that it was considering setting a minimum age for social media, similar to Australia’s move to ban the use of social media by children under 16.
Concerns over violent content
The move to target PUBG and similar games was welcomed by Lia Latifah, head of children’s rights at the National Commission for Child Protection, who has long lobbied for tougher restrictions.
“Since 2021, we’ve been asking not just for restrictions, but for their complete removal. All children should be prohibited from playing violent games,” Lia told This Week in Asia.
She said verbal and physical bullying had grown increasingly common in schools – a trend she blamed partly on children “easily [uttering] rude words” and mimicking violent behaviour absorbed through video games.
The school attack on November 7 has intensified these concerns. The suspect, a 17-year-old student, had allegedly been bullied and frequented websites showing graphic footage of death, war and killings, according to national police anti-terror spokesman Mayndra Eka Wardhana.

Police at the scene also recovered a toy submachine gun bearing white supremacist slogans and the names of two neo-Nazis who had carried out attacks in Canada and Italy.
Lia warned that children in Indonesia spend as many as five hours each day on smartphones playing games like PUBG, Mobile Legends or Free Fire – all of which involve killing as a mechanism to level up.
“This is bad for the nation’s children. These games teach violence and murder,” she said.
Decades of scientific research have produced mixed conclusions about whether violent video games lead to real-world aggression, though most major studies suggest the link is limited and far more complex than public debates often imply.
One of the most influential analyses was a review in 2015 by the American Psychological Association, which found “a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect”.
But it also stressed that the evidence did not support “a causal link to criminal violence, delinquency or lethal acts”, noting that aggression in laboratory settings could not be equated with real-life harm.
Early exposure
Data from the Indonesia Statistics Agency shows nearly 40 per cent of children aged two to six used mobile phones last year, while over a third had accessed the internet. Among those under the age of one, almost 6 per cent had used mobile phones and 4.3 per cent had been online.
Such early exposure can be harmful if children are not emotionally mature enough to engage with digital content, according to Sani Budiantini Hermawan, a psychologist specialising in child development.
Giving devices to children too early can lead to a negative impact “if a child’s emotional level is not yet mature”, she told This Week in Asia.
She said banning games with violent content could reduce school bullying, but only if schools also improved their monitoring systems.

“I urge schools to install surveillance cameras in quiet places … increase supervision through patrols and improve reporting systems, so that children can report bullying incidents anonymously,” she said, adding that schools “must respond to the reports seriously”.
In March, the national government introduced a regulation on child protection in the digital space, allowing authorities to block online platforms that fail to comply with safety requirements.
But enforcement remains a challenge, with age restrictions easily bypassed or parents actually creating accounts for their children, Sani said.
Greater parental oversight is essential to shield children from violent content online, according to Lia.
“Nowadays, many parents are permissive and indifferent. They give cellphones to their children so that they will eat or stop sulking, for example,” Lia said. “They don’t think that the impact would be extraordinary, such as speech delay and lack of focus in schools, as phones are more interesting than teachers.”


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Officials explicitly mentioned the wildly popular battle royale shooter PUBG: Battlegrounds as Indonesia weighs new regulations


Officials explicitly mentioned the wildly popular battle royale shooter PUBG: Battlegrounds as Indonesia weighs new regulations.


Indonesia targets violent video games after mosque bombing – but can a ban curb extremism?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Officials explicitly mentioned the wildly popular battle royale shooter PUBG: Battlegrounds as Indonesia weighs new regulations

Officials explicitly mentioned the wildly popular battle royale shooter PUBG: Battlegrounds as Indonesia weighs new regulations