Meta Indonesia told the Legislation Body (Baleg) of Indonesia’s House of Representatives on 11 November that requiring payment for news links and short previews in the draft copyright bill could hurt the media, especially small and regional outlets, Kompas reported. Its concern centres on Articles 29 and 30 of the draft.
Google raised link payments at the same public hearing, Suara reported, along with three other objections. By our count, the two companies put four distinct objections to the Baleg; news links are the only one both raised in the reports we read.
Business Pill · Distribution Advantage
A short explainer on distribution advantage: reach decides who gets tried. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Indonesia or Meta.
The key insight: As we read the hearing reports, the fight in Indonesia’s copyright bill is over where payment attaches: Meta told the Baleg that a link or short preview is not the article and should not trigger payment, while the article itself stays protected; Google pressed the same point and three more, by our count.
Berni Moestofa, head of public policy and government relations at Meta Indonesia, spoke at a public hearing (RDPU) with the Baleg, Kompas reported. His words, in Indonesian: “Jika aturan ini mendorong pembatasan tautan berita, penerbit dapat kehilangan kunjungan pembaca sekaligus peluang pendapatan”. Our translation: if the rule pushes platforms to restrict news links, publishers can lose both reader visits and revenue opportunities.
He added that small and regional media “dapat menjadi pihak yang paling terdampak”, which we translate as could be the most affected. On the two articles, Kompas quoted him: “kami khawatir pembayaran dapat diwajibkan hanya karena tautan, pratinjau singkat, atau rekomendasi ditampilkan, bahkan ketika penerbit membagikannya secara sukarela”. Our translation: we worry payment could be required merely because links, short previews or recommendations are displayed, even when publishers share them voluntarily.
Kompas reported that Meta does not charge publishers to share links or take a share of that revenue. Meta asked that links and short previews that do not replace the full article be exempt from payment, Kompas and Suara reported. Suara carried the same remarks, quoting him as saying that helping readers find an article “berbeda dengan menyalin atau menerbitkan ulang”, which we translate as is different from copying or republishing it.
Objections to Indonesia’s draft copyright bill raised by Meta and Google at the DPR Legislation Body hearing of 11 November 2026, as reported by Kompas and Suara: payment for news links and previews (both), a blanket licence through one central LMK, safe harbour and AI training-data licensing (Google). Grouping and count are ours.
What Google Told the Same Hearing
Agung Pamungkas, Google’s government affairs and public policy manager, said link and snippet restrictions, including a levy on links, could make it harder for platforms to index and distribute local news, Suara reported. Suara also reported that Google opposed a blanket licence through a single central collective management organisation (LMK), asked to keep safe-harbour protection through notice and action, and proposed a text and data mining exception for AI training with an opt-out such as robots.txt.
Google set out the same lines in a June post on its Indonesia blog. In its English section, Google wrote that the bill “would limit their ability to digitally distribute content and engage in independent commercial partnerships, forcing the industry to depend instead on a central body”. The Indonesian section says it would undermine commercial agreements with “lebih dari 30 penerbit”, more than 30 publishers in our translation.
Our Numbers
By our count, the reports we read list four distinct objections to the bill from the two companies: payment for news links and previews, a blanket licence through one central LMK, limits on safe harbour, and licensing of AI training data. Meta raised one of the four in the reports we read; Google raised all four. News links are the one both raised.
Meta’s objection rests on two provisions, Articles 29 and 30 of the draft, Kompas and Suara reported. Earlier this month a Brazilian court barred Meta from using news content for AI; Indonesia’s bill sits at a different point in the chain, the link that sends a reader to the article.
The Structural Read
As we read the reports, Meta narrowed its case to two articles of the draft, Articles 29 and 30, and to one mechanism, the link that sends a reader to a publisher’s site, rather than opposing copyright protection for journalism.
As we read Google’s June post and Suara’s report, Google’s objections reach further, to a central licensing body, platform liability and AI training data, which is why the two companies overlap on links and nothing else in the reports we read.
Berni Moestofa, Meta Indonesia, as quoted by Kompas, 11 November 2026
“Hak cipta atas artikel itu sendiri tetap dilindungi, sehingga kami melindungi karya jurnalistik sekaligus menjaga jalan yang membantunya menjangkau pembaca”
Three Implications
FOR INDONESIAN PUBLISHERSMeta said publishers share links on its platforms voluntarily and that it does not charge for this or take a share of the revenue, Kompas reported.
FOR PLATFORMSGoogle said a levy on links could make it harder for platforms to index and distribute local news, Suara reported.
ON THE BILL The remarks were made at a public hearing (RDPU) of the Baleg on 11 November 2026, in the course of deliberations on the copyright bill, Suara reported.
The framework says: “Every technology stack has layers. Some are scarce, some are abundant.”
As we read it, the Baleg hearing is a dispute over which layer of the news stack carries a price: Meta argued that the link and the short preview should stay free to show while the article stays protected. The framework does not discuss Indonesia or news publishing.
What Is Not Established
We did not read the text of the draft bill or of Articles 29 and 30, and we did not watch the hearing; the remarks come from Kompas and Suara. The reports we read do not give a timetable for the bill, a payment rate, or Meta’s figures on news traffic in Indonesia. The translations from Indonesian are ours. We did not ask Meta or Google for comment; their positions here are their own public statements.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
Meta told Indonesia’s Baleg on 11 November that making platforms pay for news links and short previews under Articles 29 and 30 of the draft copyright bill could cost publishers visits and revenue, with small and regional media most exposed, according to Kompas; Google pressed the same point and three more at the hearing, Suara reported.
A note on sourcing. We read the Kompas and Suara reports of the 11 November 2026 hearing in Indonesian and Google’s Indonesia blog post of 29 June 2026 in full. Translations and the count of objections are ours. We did not read the draft bill or watch the hearing.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
