Platform Governance and Political Speech: YouTube, TikTok, and the Regulation of Indonesian Political Content

Abstract

This study examines how platform governance on YouTube and TikTok regulates Indonesian political content and the implications for political speech, democratic participation, and digital public discourse. As these platforms become primary venues for political communication, campaigning, and civic engagement, their content moderation policies, algorithmic recommendation systems, and enforcement practices significantly influence which political voices gain visibility and which are suppressed. This research investigates how platform governance shapes the production, circulation, and reception of political content in Indonesia, focusing on how moderation decisions interact with local political contexts, regulatory pressures, and user behaviors. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study combines policy analysis of platform guidelines and Indonesian regulations with qualitative content analysis of political videos and short-form content, as well as interviews with content creators, digital activists, and platform users. The findings reveal that YouTube and TikTok apply governance mechanisms that reflect both global policy frameworks and localized compliance, resulting in inconsistent moderation outcomes and uncertainty among political content producers. Algorithmic recommendation systems often prioritize engagement-driven content, which can amplify sensational or polarizing political messaging, while moderation practices may disproportionately affect minority or dissenting voices due to vague rules and automated enforcement. The study also identifies the role of state influence, including legal threats and coordination with platform operators, in shaping governance outcomes. The novelty of this research lies in its comparative analysis of two dominant platforms within Indonesia’s political media ecosystem, highlighting the differential impacts of platform architecture and governance models on political speech. The contribution of the study is to provide empirical insights into how platform governance reconfigures democratic communication and to propose a framework for evaluating digital rights in platform-mediated politics. It concludes that ensuring democratic political speech requires greater transparency in moderation, stronger accountability mechanisms, and multi-stakeholder governance that balances free expression with harm prevention.