Indonesian Media Researcher Warns Smartphones and Social Media Have Opened New Spaces for Sexual Harassment

A new article by Riza Mahardika, M.Med.Kom, examines sexual harassment as gender-based violence in the digital era and argues that protecting victims starts with understanding the causes.

KEDIRI, Indonesia, October 2026 - Smartphone apps and social media have created new spaces where sexual harassment takes place, with women, children and teenagers most exposed, according to a new article by Indonesian media communication researcher Riza Mahardika, M.Med.Kom.

The Indonesian-language article describes sexual harassment as a long-standing social problem that now dominates public attention, with news coverage updated almost daily on television, in print and on social media. It also notes that the media itself can at times become a perpetrator of violence.

The article defines violence broadly. It is not limited to shootings, beatings or bloodshed, but includes any act of aggression that harms a person, whether verbal or non-verbal, direct or indirect. Among its many forms, the article singles out gender-based violence (GBV) as one that draws particular attention.

Online, the article argues, the same rules and norms apply as in face-to-face interaction (Feryna and Fadhil, 2018). Yet platform rules such as minimum ages for opening an account are often bypassed: underage children hold accounts, and some users open accounts with bad intentions. This misuse, it says, feeds the rise of cybercrime, including bullying, fraud and sexual harassment.

"Violence is not only about blows or bloodshed; it can be verbal or non-verbal, direct or indirect," said Riza Mahardika, M.Med.Kom. "Social media carries the same rules and norms as face-to-face life, but when those rules are bypassed, women and children are the most exposed. Protecting victims means understanding why these crimes happen in the first place."

The article stresses that harassment can be committed by anyone and can happen anywhere, recalling a case involving an online motorcycle taxi (ojol) driver and a passenger that went viral in Indonesia in 2019. It concludes that protecting victims of sexual violence must go hand in hand with addressing the factors that cause it.

About Riza Mahardika

Riza Mahardika, M.Med.Kom, is an Indonesian researcher based in Kediri, East Java. She earned her Master of Media and Communication (M.Med.Kom) from Universitas Airlangga in 2013 and has 14 years of experience in communication and digital media. Her work examines media and society, including gender-based violence in the media, and she publishes her research and analysis at RizaHub (https://rizahub.com).