Platform Accountability for Disinformation, Data Protection Law, and Democracy in Indonesia

Yayasan Tifa and Open Net Korea’s Advocating Privacy in the Age of Micro-Targeting

Date & Time: Tuesday, 28 May 2024, 10:00 ~ 17:00 
Venue: Hotel Ashley Tanah Abang Jakarta

Program

Session 1: The Centrality of Data in the Business Models and Incentive of Digital Platforms: An Introduction By Wahyudi Djafar Session2: Using Personal Data Protection Regulation in Advocacy on Social Media Platforms By KS Park Session3: Developing Advocacy Strategies to Hold Social Media Platforms Accountable By Ika Karlina Workshop: Developing Advocacy Strategies

Summary of the Session

This full-day capacity-building seminar aims to facilitate Indonesian civil society actors to: 

1. understand further the data processing carried out by social media platforms, including microtargeting mechanisms and content recommendation systems, and the various potential privacy violations they cause; 

2. examine potential legal measures that civil society actors can undertake using data protection laws and regulations to address platform companies’ harmful and unethical data processing activities; and 

3. enhance the understanding of local civil society actors of the potential misuse of data protection regulations and formulate a balanced framework that fosters the unfettered expression of ideas while safeguarding individual privacy rights.

In the first session, ELSAM’s Wayudi Jafar explained how social media and search engine platforms profile users and non-users and collect and use data for political and advertising targeting. He also discussed privacy issues during the process of platforms’ personal information collection and initiatives to regulate microtargeting. Despite existing sectoral regulations in Indonesia having provisions on platform companies’ data protection responsibilities, the fact that there have not yet been precedents of successful data protection litigation in Indonesia against platform companies operating in the country, both domestic and multinational arose from the discussion. In the second session, KS Park delved into cases highlighting the role of the South Korean Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) in ordering Google and Facebook corrective measures for their data processing activities and imposing penalty surcharges. Ika Karlina Idris, Associate Professor at Public Policy & Management Monash University Indonesia, brought the third session. Ika presented findings indicating information operations from several social media monitoring she has been conducting to explain how the business model of social media platforms, working on advertising sales and user interactions, enables and supports the success of information operations.

In the workshop that followed the session, participants discussed four topics in depth: litigation in response to personal information infringement incidents, advocacy activities to strengthen the personal information protection system, personal information protection advocacy activities at the local and global level, and ways to revitalize user literacy programs.

A total of 50 participants attended.  More than the majority were women. 

Korean version text