Indonesia has long stood as a democratic paradox: a country with vibrant electoral participation and open civic engagement, yet persistent institutional fragility. Over the last decade, another paradox has emerged—one that reshapes the relationship between public opinion and policymaking. As more citizens engage through digital platforms, political decisions have become increasingly reactive, emotionally charged, and performative.
What we are witnessing is a shift toward what might be called reactive democracy—a form of governance in which legitimacy, through still rooted in elections or institutional authority, is sustained in between elections by the performance of responsiveness to the social media reactions that determining which issues gain visibility and urgency—and which have increasingly become seen as proxies for the popular will.
This logic stands in sharp contrast to the model of deliberative democracy, where legitimacy arises not from the volume or velocity of expression, but from its quality. As envisioned by thinkers like Habermas, deliberative democracy depends on inclusive, rational-critical debate—spaces where citizens justify their claims, consider opposing views, and seek mutual understanding. It imagines the public sphere as a space for thoughtful negotiation and the slow formation of reasoned consensus.
Social media once seemed to promise this very vision: a digitally enabled deliberative space where citizens could bypass traditional gatekeepers and engage directly in democratic discourse. Few techno-utopian thinkers envisioned a future where the interactive features of digital platforms would foster a deeper, more participatory democracy—a kind of virtual town square grounded in openness, reciprocity, and reflective dialogue
But in practice, platforms are not designed for deliberation—they are designed to capture attention. Reactions—emoji clicks, retweets, algorithmically sorted comments—are designed for speed and simplicity, not for reasoned exchange.
Though individually fleeting, these digital signals become powerful when taken together, shaping the collective mood as interpreted and amplified by platform algorithms. The result is a connected mass democracy that often feels more reactive than reflective. It is, in many of its manifestations, shallower, more performative, and more susceptible to the distortions of spectacle than the idealist advocates of digital democracy had originally envisioned.
Governance by trend
In this environment, policymaking increasingly follows what goes viral, not what is effective. It becomes more performative than deliberative—driven by what trends, rather than what works. The democratic potential of this shift is real, but so are its dangers.
In early 2025, several high-profile policy U-turns under President Prabowo Subianto’s administration illustrated this dynamic in real time. However, the phenomenon of viral-driven policymaking did not begin with the Prabowo administration. During Joko Widodo’s presidency, there was already a growing pattern of state responsiveness to viral criticism and digital outrage. A long list of Jokowi-era policies—ranging from controversial labour and education regulations to public health mandates and infrastructure plans—were revised, delayed, or scrapped entirely after facing intense online backlash. What started as occasional policy reversals under Jokowi has now become a more consistent and embedded mode of governance under Prabowo.
One of the first involved an attempt to restrict the sale of 3-kilogram LPG canisters—widely known as tabung gas melon—to licensed distributors. The move disrupted informal retail networks relied on by millions. Within days, social media platforms were flooded with videos of distressed citizens, particularly women and elderly residents, struggling to find affordable gas. As public frustration intensified online, the government quickly reversed course. The canisters returned to warung shelves, and public anger subsided.
Earlier, backlash also erupted over a proposed increase in the Value Added Tax (VAT) to 12 percent. Fears of rising prices for basic goods spread rapidly across social media. In response, the government hastily clarified that the hike would apply only to luxury items—a move widely interpreted as a reaction to mounting digital outrage.
A third episode involved a controversial customs regulation limiting the quantity of goods Indonesian citizens could bring home from abroad. The policy was seen as excessive and burdensome. Online, the term “Becuk”—a mocking abbreviation of Bea Cukai (customs office)—went viral, symbolising widespread dissatisfaction. In a rare move, the spokesperson for the ministry of finance, Prastowo Yustinus, took to Twitter/X to crowdsource feedback from netizens. Days later, following intense online criticism and input, the government scrapped the regulation altogether.
More recently, the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (Menpan RB) issued a circular announcing delays in the appointment of new civil servants (Calon Pegawati Negeri Sipil or CPNS) and contract-based government employees (Pegawai Pemerintah dengan Perjanjian Kerka or PPPK). The decision sparked public disappointment. Within days, an online petition demanding the fast-tracking of CPNS recruitment began circulating widely, while the hashtag #saveCASN2024 trended across platforms as citizens protested the delay. Following the viral backlash, the government once again revised its position, announcing that CPNS appointments would be accelerated in response to public demand.
These cases may seem minor, but they reflect a deeper trend. In today’s Indonesia, policy decisions increasingly unfold under the pressure of algorithmically-enabled mobilisation. No longer confined to deliberative forums, data and evidence, or expert panels, policymaking must now survive the court of public virality.
Then trade minister Zulkifli Hasan acommpanies former president Joko Widodo on a market visit, May 2024 (Photo: Zulkifli Hasan on Facebook)
From deliberation to digitally amplified emotion
Indonesia’s digital landscape has expanded rapidly. With over 78 percent internet penetration, the public sphere now includes voices historically excluded from formal politics—housewives, rural youth, street vendors, and informal workers. This democratisation of access has, in many ways, created new spaces for accountability and participatory engagement.
But social media platforms operate on emotional and algorithmic logic. Viral outrage—not careful deliberation—drives visibility. Research has consistently shown that emotionally charged content is far more likely to be shared and amplified. In this environment, complex and long-term policy issues—such as tax reform, climate adaptation, or education equity—often struggle to gain traction.
Reactions may appear trivial, but they play a crucial role in digital politics. They not only gauge the popularity of content but also directly affect its algorithmic visibility—and therefore, its influence. The more reactions a piece of content garners, the more prominently social media platforms display it. The “clickers,” “likers,” and “sharers” may be dismissed as mere clicktivists, but they’ve become micro-opinion leaders and amplifiers of political messages.
In turn, political leaders now obsessively track and optimise for these metrics, treating them as proxies for public approval. This carries a plebiscitary logic, where mass participation comes at the cost of shallow interaction. Only a small subset of activists engage in sustained political discourse, while the majority contribute through simplified acts—clicking “like,” sharing a post, or reacting with an emoji. These actions are individually minor but collectively powerful, accumulating into visible indicators of public sentiment. It is not always populist leaders driving this shift, but the performative pressures of a digitally mediated public—namely, the growing expectation, amplified by social media, that politicians respond swiftly and visibly to online sentiment, often through symbolic gestures rather than through deliberative policymaking.
In Indonesia, this logic is becoming institutionalised. Ministries now allocate specific budgets for social media governance—not merely to disseminate policy updates, but to monitor, respond to, and occasionally manipulate public sentiment online. These operations consist of coordinated networks of influencers, content creators, account coordinators, and paid buzzers who work together to steer online opinion in favour of the government and corporate interests. Beyond simply promoting state or corporate agendas, buzzers often engage in targeted attacks against dissenting voices, discrediting and intimidating journalists, activists, and environmental defenders.
In effect, what Indonesia is witnessing is not merely the digitisation of its democracy. Rather, the rise of buzzers under the umbrella of reactive democracy shows how digital platforms, far from democratising public life, have been adapted to entrench existing hierarchies of power and shield them from accountability.
As a result, policy decisions are not only swayed by viral public moods but are actively shaped and defended by orchestrated buzzer campaigns, making policymaking increasingly reactive, short-term, and hostile to critical scrutiny.
Democracy without deliberation?
To be clear, reactive democracy is not inherently exclusionary. In fact, it often expands participation and strengthens what some scholars call “vertical accountability” from below. It allows citizens—particularly those outside Jakarta or beyond elite circles—to shape national conversations. The ability to film, upload, and amplify grievances in real-time has fostered a new form of political participation—less tied to formal institutions, more rooted in emotional resonance and performative outrage.
This visibility raises the reputational cost for policymakers who ignore public sentiment. Civil society actors, too, can leverage online momentum to elevate grassroots concerns to national prominence. In many ways, this dynamic has democratised voice. But it has also introduced significant risks.
Related
What does it mean for Indonesia’s political development when elites and voters view democracy in instrumental terms?
First, reactive governance undermines the predictability and stability that democratic institutions are designed to provide. When policy is shaped by viral outrage, long-term planning becomes difficult. Technocratic expertise may shift from evaluating outcomes to managing narratives. Evidence-based policymaking risks being sidelined by the imperative to act quickly—and visibly.
Second, not all voices carry equal weight online. Although digital participation is expanding, algorithmic hierarchies still favour particular demographics. Urban, tech-savvy, middle-class users dominate much of the digital space, while rural communities, the elderly, and others on the margins remain underrepresented. What trends online may not reflect a democratic majority—but rather, an emotionally charged, algorithmically curated subset of the public.
Third, the emotional tone of online discourse can erode the foundation of democratic reasoning. Policies that tackle complex challenges—such as climate change, education reform, or fiscal restructuring—require sustained, inclusive deliberation. These issues rarely go viral. A democracy governed by trending sentiment risks becoming one allergic to difficult truths.
Fourth, digital discourse is easily manipulated. Political influencers, buzzers, and bots are frequently deployed to manufacture outrage or simulate grassroots support. In such cases, what appears to be “public opinion” may in fact be engineered by vested interests. Reactive governance, then, may end up responding not to the people—but to those who are most skilled at gaming the system.
Conclusion: toward a more reflective digital democracy
The rise of reactive democracy in Indonesia reveals a troubling paradox at the heart of its political transformation. On the surface, the digital public sphere appears to have invigorated political participation and enhanced a form of vertical accountability—citizens speaking back to power in real time, holding policymakers to account through viral outrage. Yet beneath this performative responsiveness lies a deeper erosion of institutional strength.
What appears to be democratic responsiveness is often merely symbolic. Indonesia’s political landscape has become dominated by performance—gestures of attentiveness rather than substantive reform. Policy is increasingly shaped not by careful deliberation or long-term vision, but by what trends online. Public approval is measured in likes and hashtags, not in deliberative consensus. This is accountability in appearance, not in structure.
Meanwhile, the horizontal and diagonal dimensions of accountability—checks by the judiciary, legislatures, civil society, and investigative media—have weakened significantly in recent years. Formal institutions have been hollowed out or co-opted, and public watchdogs struggle to compete with the speed and spectacle of social media outrage. In this context, digital participation risks distracting from deeper institutional decay, replacing enduring accountability mechanisms with a more volatile and superficial kind.
Indonesia is not alone in confronting the promises and perils of digital democracy. But the stakes are uniquely high here, where the democratic project has long been shaped by a tension between mass legitimacy and institutional fragility. The challenge is not simply to regulate platforms or improve digital literacy—though these are important steps. It is to fundamentally rethink how democratic accountability is practiced and sustained in the digital age.
Left unchecked, reactive democracy may lead Indonesia further into a plebiscitary model of governance: one where public input is immediate but shallow, emotionally resonant but policy-thin—ultimately undermining the very institutions needed to support democratic resilience. But if redirected, these new digital dynamics could also be harnessed to strengthen democracy by opening new spaces for deliberation, responsiveness, and inclusion.
Meeting that challenge requires more than reactive governance. It demands a renewed commitment to building a reflective digital democracy—one that links digital expression to institutional power, and emotional energy to collective reasoning. The task ahead is to ensure that democracy in Indonesia is not only reactive, but also resilient, inclusive, and ultimately, reflective.
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