Minister warns of AI Driven online gambling spam

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said operators of online gambling platforms first monitor social media activity in real time before posting promotional spam comments.

"Based on reports received by the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs, the spam operation is carried out through a system that can monitor social media activity in real time," she said in a press conference at the ministry's office in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The perpetrator monitors social media activity until they detect a spike in interactions on an account. Once the spike is detected, they send promotional comments to the account.

According to her, perpetrators can send up to thousands of comments automatically using accounts operated by machines or bots.

The minister said that the increasingly organized attack patterns and the use of technology indicate that handling online gambling spam comments cannot be handled by the government alone.

Therefore, she continued, cross-agency collaboration and support from digital platform companies are needed to strengthen prevention and enforcement efforts against the spread.

"Addressing this issue requires cooperation, not only from the government, but also the private sector, in this case, platforms, to address this issue," she said.

On the same occasion, she stated that spam comments containing promotional material for judol were most commonly found on social media accounts of regional influencers with high engagement.

"The primary targets have shifted. The distribution of targets shows that the most spammed accounts are those with high engagement," she said.

Meutya explained that 52 percent of online gambling spam comments were found on regional influencer accounts, 31 percent on government agency accounts, 12 percent on mass media accounts, and five percent on public figures' and politicians' accounts.

Related news: Indonesia, Meta launch team to combat online gambling spam

Translator: Farhan Arda, Asri Mayang Sari

Editor: Bayu Prasetyo

Copyright © ANTARA 2026