Regulating Social Commerce: A Legal Comparison Between Indonesia, China, India, and Vietnam

Social commerce has emerged as a global trend transforming the digital economy, including in Indonesia. Platforms such as TikTok Shop and Facebook Shop offer economic opportunities but also pose regulatory challenges related to predatory pricing, legal certainty, and consumer data protection. Existing Indonesian studies largely adopt a normative focus, particularly on Minister of Trade Regulation No. 31 of 2023. This study employs normative legal research using conceptual and comparative approaches, based on a literature review and regulatory analysis. The findings show that Asian countries apply diverse regulatory models. Indonesia adopts a restrictive, protection-oriented approach that tends to create legal uncertainty and limit innovation. China promotes a dynamic social commerce ecosystem with strict platform oversight, though monopolistic risks remain. India emphasizes transparency and fair competition amid persistent digital inequality, while Vietnam integrates social commerce into its broader e-commerce framework to support MSMEs, albeit with weak enforcement. The study concludes that Indonesia should avoid direct regulatory transplantation and instead pursue a selective, incremental adaptation strategy aligned with domestic institutional capacity and democratic accountability.
Keywords: Business Law, Comparative Law, Social Commerce, Social Media.