No, Indonesia has not announced it will ban anime

This article published in November 2017 on the website Zoneknowledge.com said the culture and education ministry announced it would block anime and some popular online games like Mobile Legends that contained “elements which are bad for one’s physical and spiritual health”. An English translation of the headline reads: “Culture and Education Ministry: we will block some games and all anime.”

The article claims the ministry made the announcement in a Facebook post. It also said the government had made the decision because some games and anime contained “elements” of pornography, violence, and radicalism.

Anime refers to hand drawn or computer-generated animation usually based on Japanese graphic novels.

The claims about the ban have continued to be shared by Facebook users, such as in this post from July.

A Facebook user asked the Indonesian Hoaxes Community -- which specialises in debunking fake news -- in July if the story was true.

The government says the original article’s claims are false.

“There has been no policy to ban [games and anime]. We only called on parents to accompany their children while choosing which games to play,” Adi Irawan, an official at the culture ministry’s directorate for family education management, told AFP.

The cultural ministry’s website and official Facebook page also have no record of it making such a statement.