Ambition to expand tax collection from the digital economy is understandable. As more Indonesians pay for streaming subscriptions, cloud services, software licenses, AI platforms, and online games from overseas providers, the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that value-added tax (VAT) is collected fairly and efficiently.

The recent controversy surrounding the online sale advertisement of Pulau Katang in the Riau Islands illustrates how rapidly that shift is happening. A Threads account openly offered the 73-hectare island for Rp65 billion, promoting it as suitable for a “private island,” luxury resort, and exclusive tourism development with easy access to Singapore.

The government, through the Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DJKI), is studying the creation of a collective management organization to collect royalties from AI companies that use copyrighted materials to train their models. The proposal would function similarly to the music royalty system, where businesses pay a central institution that later distributes payments to creators.

President Prabowo’s Forest Area Enforcement Task Force (Satgas PKH) has recently seized nearly one thousand of hectares from two plantation companies, one controlled by SGX-listed Wilmar International Ltd and the other was previously owned by Malaysia’s Sime Darby Plantation but now linked to one of Indonesian conglomerates, and one coal mining firm.

The public battle surrounding former venture capital executive Nicko Widjaja is no longer centered inside a courtroom. It has evolved into something far larger: a coordinated narrative war across Indonesia’s startup ecosystem.