"Nearly 150 people on the eighth floor of the Kominfo Ministry Building are combating online gambling for 24 hours for seven days within three shifts," he noted in a press release received from his office here on Monday.
Patria remarked that a team at the Kominfo Ministry had been working to oversee Indonesia's digital space by utilizing artificial intelligence and a "web crawler" software that systematically browses the internet.
Online gambling sites detected will then be blocked to prevent the public from accessing them, he revealed.
According to Patria, the Kominfo Ministry has managed to cut off access to roughly 1.5 million websites containing online gambling items during the period from July 2022 to March 2024.
The deputy minister further highlighted that his side had been in coordination with operators of digital platforms, such as Meta and X, to take down circulating negative digital content.
He said that the ministry had reprimanded Meta and X due to the existence of online gambling content on their platforms.
The Kominfo Ministry has also taken steps to intensify coordination with ministries and agencies to cut off the financial access of developers of online gambling platforms.
"We have been collaborating with the Financial Services Authority (OJK) to block related bank accounts and with the National Police (Polri) to track down and pursue those involved in online gambling activities," he stated.
Based on the government's investigation, he remarked that most of the developers of online gambling content circulating in Indonesia are residing abroad, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar.
Patria underlined that the developers had been recruiting Indonesian nationals as operators of online gambling sites.
"Plenty of Indonesian talents flew to Cambodia and Myanmar in the hopes of working for game developer companies. However, they were instead asked to develop online gambling games once they arrived," he stated.
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Translator: Livia K, Tegar Nurfitra
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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