<![CDATA[Society 5.0’s integration of the physical and cyber realms through the Internet of Things coincides with a pattern within TikTok’s algorithmic ecosystem in which users exploit themselves through saweran, or gifts, during live streams shaped by engagement-maximizing algorithms. Indonesia’s ITE Law and its amendments remain too general to address this pattern, leaving a gap in legal protection for users. This study proposes self-slavery as a distinct socio-legal construct, examines the limitations of Indonesia’s cyber law, and outlines directions for regulatory reform. It uses a mixed-methods, sociological-legal approach with an exploratory case study design. Data came from an online questionnaire administered in two phases (304 respondents in 2025, 408 in 2026; combined sample of 712) across 17 provinces, analyzed using the Miles and Huberman interactive model. Among the 408 respondents surveyed in 2026, 58.6% recognized the term self-slavery. Across the combined sample, 85.66% reported a perceived negative social impact from TikTok, 24.44% felt pressured to follow viral trends, 54.78% felt deceived by the platform’s mechanisms, and 73.28% supported cyber law reform, with high instrument reliability (Guttman’s λ2 = 0.812). These findings support treating self-slavery as a distinct construct, separate from digital slavery, labor exploitation, and clinical digital addiction, pointing to the need for a dedicated regulatory framework. The study recommends amending the ITE Law to hold electronic system providers accountable for their algorithms’ social impact and to recognize user autonomy as a matter of digital legal subjectivity, a step toward technological legal sovereignty in the Society 5.0 era.]]>
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