2023 Indonesian child abduction scare

In early January 2023, rumours of child kidnappings began circulating across Indonesia, spreading through social media platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook, and TikTok. According to authorities, the vast majority of these rumours were fabricated. The panic emerged in multiple regions including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and Papua, and in many instances the accusations were directed at perceived outsiders, migrants, or people with mental illness. Officials attributed the spread to low digital literacy, while experts pointed to broader public distrust in state institutions as a contributing factor. Despite most reports being dismissed as false, Indonesia's Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection noted that some viral kidnapping cases had been reported since December 2022.

The consequences of the rumours varied by location but in several cases proved fatal or violent. In Ambon, Maluku, a story about four students nearly being kidnapped was later found to have been fabricated by the children themselves, according to the local police chief. In East Java, a WhatsApp voice recording describing an attempted kidnapping was investigated and dismissed as fake by regional police. In Depok, screenshots purporting to show a kidnapped child's corpse were circulated and later dismissed as a hoax by the local Director of Cyber Crime. In Tangerang Regency, a woman falsely accused of kidnapping escaped an attack by a small crowd.

The most severe incidents occurred in Sorong and Wamena. In Sorong, on 24 January 2023, a woman accused of child kidnapping was being escorted by police for questioning when a mob confronted the group and burned her to death during the resulting riot. In Wamena, Highland Papua, a rumour of child kidnapping on 23 February 2023 triggered a deadly riot in which ten rioters were killed, mostly by police, along with two traders who had been accused of kidnapping — a combined death toll of twelve.

Elsewhere, violence and false accusations recurred in a similar pattern. In North Musi Rawas Regency, five traders travelling from Jambi to Lubuklinggau were accused of child kidnapping by a local woman; a village head's warnings distributed via WhatsApp escalated into vigilante beatings of the traders. In Surabaya, a man with mental illness who was distributing candy to children was accused of being a kidnapper by children and was beaten to death by a mob on 3 February 2023. Additional false rumours, later dismissed by authorities, were reported in Pontianak, Sampang, Minahasa Regency, Palu, Samarinda, and Kupang, with police in several of these locations confirming no verified kidnapping reports had occurred.

The wave of rumours and resulting violence has been compared by some to the 1998 Banyuwangi massacre, a historical episode of Indonesian mob violence driven by similar unverified rumours.