Number of internet users in Indonesia 2017-2028
Internet usage in Indonesia
With over 204 million internet users, Indonesia is one of the biggest online markets worldwide. As of July 2021, online penetration in the country stood at around 70 percent. Popular online activities included mobile messaging and social media. The most popular social network in Indonesia was Whatsapp, with around 89 percent of the online population using the platform. Mobile internet usage is undergoing double-digit growth rates and currently stands at over 64 percent among the population.
Internet freedom
Indonesia was listed as “partly free” in the Freedom on the Net index, which places the country ahead of less free Asian online markets such as China, Thailand or Malaysia but behind Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. This rating is due to blocked political and social content as well as various restrictions and violations of user rights, most notably through the governmental passing of the Law on Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE Law). The ITE law holds strong penalties such as prison sentences and high fines for anybody convicted of online defamation charges. This law has also been applied to blog posts and Facebook comments and has lead to self-censorship among online writers and internet users as well as an increasingly tense online atmosphere.