TikTok Live in Indonesia Suddenly Disappears During Massive National Demonstrations
The live broadcast feature on the social media platform TikTok suddenly became inaccessible to users. Several netizens complained that when attempting to broadcast live, a notification appeared that read, “Connection unstable. Try going live again.”
Furthermore, when users tried to search for live broadcasts using the search bar by typing in certain keywords, the results returned blank. This situation led many netizens to suspect that TikTok’s live feature had actually been temporarily suspended.
The disruption to the live feature coincided with a wave of large-scale demonstrations that took place in various regions on Friday (August 29, 2025). This sparked speculation that the issue was related to the spread of protest content on social media.
However, Deputy Minister of Communication and Digital (Wamenkomdigi), Nezar Patria, emphasized that the government had not intervened in TikTok’s live feature regarding the demonstrations. According to him, the government had long been in communication with several digital platforms, including TikTok and Meta, to discuss content moderation.
“It’s not actually related to the demonstrations. It’s more about content moderation. That’s been going on for a long time, so it’s not because of the demonstrations,” said Nezar in Jakarta.
He explained that content moderation focuses on handling negative content such as online gambling, disinformation, and information that violates regulations. Nezar also emphasized that digital platforms have been quite cooperative in working together to address these issues.
However, Komdigi continues to highlight the rise of provocative content related to the demonstrations that has gone viral on social media, particularly TikTok. According to the government, footage of the riots, viewed by tens of thousands of netizens, has the potential to provoke the public and undermine the democratic climate.
“Komdigi doesn’t intend to restrict freedom of expression, but is asking digital platforms to have systems capable of detecting disinformation and manipulative content,” Nezar said.
As a follow-up, Komdigi has contacted several major technology companies, including Helena Lersch, Global Public Policy Director (MENA, APAC) at ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
