Internet Blocking & Regulation

March 28th, 2008, in News, by Patung

Government efforts to regulate the internet and block access to porn websites.

Cyber Law

On 25th March a new law on information and electronic transactions (UU Informasi Transaksi Elektronik, ITE) was passed by the parliament in Jakarta. Much of the interest in it focuses on what is forbidden by the law, which is set out in Section 8, Articles 27 to 37.

Article 27:

anyone who deliberately and without rights distributes/transmits/makes accessible electronic information/electronic documents with content that

violates decency (kesusilaan)
involves gambling
is libellous
is threatening

Article 28 forbids the spreading of lies over the internet (1) and hate speech (2) directed towards particular groups, based on racial, ethnic or religious differences (SARA).

For both articles violations of the law may lead to imprisonment of up to six years and fines up to 1 billion rupiah ($110,000).

Blocking Sites

Muhammad Nuh, the minister for Information, said three methods to block “unhealthy” (pornographic, hateful, violent) sites could be used: [1] [2]

educate people to avoid them
provide people with “nanny” software to block them
restrict the internet access of schools, campuses, offices, etc (involving blocking direct connections from abroad by using a gateway)

These specific measures against porn sites and others are expected to be set out in one or more ministerial edicts, and due to come into effect in April or May. The “nanny” software is already available for download from the Information ministry website.

However he says that the plan to block adult sites is more of a “moral vision” and that the government is limited in what it can do and needs the help of ISP’s and internet cafe operators.

If the ISP’s and warnets only succeed in restricting access [to inappropriate sites] by about 15-20% then that’s okay, the point is we have made an effort to minimalise access.

He said the government intends to make a list of “negative sites” that are meant to be blocked, and that these websites will be those that are pornographic, hateful, or violent. The list will be continually updated and ISP’s and warnets informed of any changes. [3]

Previously Nuh had said that the new law was needed now because the government intends to massively increase the proportion of the population with internet access, particularly in villages.

Download and view UU ITE.

Internet Cafe Raids

In Bogor, West Java, policeman Subur Rahardjo says the police will routinely raid warnets, or public internet cafes, looking for people accessing porn web sites.

He says it will be part of a new campaign against social diseases such as prostitution, liquor drinking, and VCD porn films, and done in support of the the Pornography Law (UU Pornografi), and to make sure the situation was conducive for the coming gubernatorial election in West Java. [4]

And in Bojonegoro, East Java, the police and the regency government intend to coordinate efforts to deal with internet cafes that provide folders of pornographic images on their computers. There are said to be 17 warnets in Bojonegoro, and so far one of these has been caught allowing the storing of porn. [5]

Tags: Bogor, Crime, Cyber Crime, East Java, Gambling, Hate Speech, Internet Cafes, Java, Law, Laws, Muhammad Nuh, Parliament, Police, Porn, Pornografi, Pornography, Prostitution, Religion, Schools, Sin, Warnet, Websites, West Java

19 Comments on “Internet Blocking & Regulation”

Agusto Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Dear courageous Patung,

Will your site be blocked? I hope not. We/you are not involved in anything like that right? Well then Keep it up, you are doing wonderful for exposing the truth. Thank you.
Rambutan Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Great, a new law that gives police the opportunity to extort money (this time from warnets, individuals, etc.). The government isn’t even able to repair roads in Jakarta; how are they going to block porn sites. Ridiculous.. And what about my basic right to enjoy pornography? I’m old enough and should be able to decide myself what to watch.
sri Says:
March 29th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Meanwhile Fitna goes viral, In 24 hours more than 20 download sources on torrent alone. I bet they like to block that but not a snowballs chance in hell.

On the other hand why block quotes from Koran.
ramster Says:
March 30th, 2008 at 12:41 am
I heard about that news too. Sucks doesn’t it? Now where can I get all the nudies around the net. This is what happening in our God-forsaken country, my suggestion is: leave now, and start looking for another country to live. Nothing is good anymore in Indonesia.
ecky Says:
March 31st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Pinch me please, our president still Suharto?

We don’t have freedom to choose what sites we want to visit, Oh dear… What’s wrong with this government *sigh*
Pena Budaya Says:
March 31st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I wonder how this regulation in Indonesia will working properly..

Publishing the banned website every week or every day or every month would waste so much time! I can imagine how many porn websites created in every hour!!

Silly.
rima Says:
March 31st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
So much for ‘reformasi’ and ‘demokrasi’ huh?
Indonesia is reforming into pakistan, no.. saudi arabia.. no… AFGHANISTAN!

Pretty soon women walking down the streets alone or their beautiful voices would be ban of fear that it would be a turn on for men.

What else are they going to do? Forbid people to study overseas (to limit the exposure of porn, blasphemous materials etc on Indo students) or vacation in western countries?

This is worse than the times of Suharto, because our people have had a taste of the limitless information highway and democracy and now all those will once again be a luxury because of the suggested bans, while it should be the norm and be experienced by anyone and everyone.
Lairedion Says:
March 31st, 2008 at 6:08 pm
So far for all these so-called “moderate Muslims” while in the meantime sharia is gaining ground in Indonesia
M.F Says:
April 1st, 2008 at 4:40 am
Yay! we’re on the way to become China!
Andre Says:
April 1st, 2008 at 5:52 am
I have read they want to spend 30 Trilliun (Rp. 30.000.000.000.000) to “ban” pornography (we all know you will never stop porn from entering Indonesia)… How many canals to prevent flooding or monorails could you build with that?

SBY, stupid i***, what kind of democrat are you?

Well good for you guys… you now have 29.9 Trilliun in the pocket for the next elections… And the web business is now controled by Telkom…

By the way, I’d like to make a porn site, how much do I have to pay not to be banned? Tarifs are already planned?
Murphy Says:
April 1st, 2008 at 11:19 am
What’s so good about porn that you must defend it? Oh, sorry, I forget. It gives you another platform for Islam-bashing. OK, fine. Now let’s get to the argument.

Porn was banned from all offices and schools internet anyway and the last time I checked, the CEOs of Procter & Gamble or Exxon Mobil are not muslims. The principal of Jakarta International School is not muslim either, but guess what? You can’t watch Japanese schoolgirl’s panties there either. Damn those Taliban-infested companies! They just blocked your “basic right to enjoy pornography”.

But they are not government, right? Fine. Singapore also banned Playboy, Penthouse and Bangbros site. And they ban them from the citizen-paid ISP. Damn those Muslim Singapore government!

Now the Indonesian government is rolling free internet access to all highschool in Indonesia (it’s good news, so by default you don’t get it in Indonesia Matters). The last thing you want to see is all these testosterone-poisoned boys using this free state facility to jerk-off to the 400 images of Chika gives blow job to his boyfriend (you never heard of Chika? Well, it’s too late now.)

Will the ban works? Hell, no way! But it gives some security to parents that their children will not get their dose of porn so easily. They must learn how to Google properly (to find that by-pass software) and learn the detail of Internet Protocol (at least now they start to use the word “proxy”).

If this ban makes the children start to use search engine, then let’s ban porn. I’m tired of highschool students coming to the warnet only to update their Friendster account but never heard the word “Google” or “Wikipedia” even once in their lifetime. If they continue living in their cocooon like that they will grow up being alarmist muslim-bashers, living in their own prejudice and fears.
mark Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:41 am
I want to enjoy porn from internet beacuse I am over 30 years old. I don’t want my children to have access to porn through the internet. I don’t think it is a matter of Muslim or Non Muslim. It is a matter of system. A system to filter internet user whether they are adult or not. Through what ? Single Digital ID system. Since Indonesia has not yet applied Single Digital ID, then there is no other way than to block the sites consisting porn.
Farah Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 am
No porn site.. but people will still could find a way to see to watch… i think its depend on the person that sit in front of comp and press the enter button. You like it, you’ll get it. No matter how hard they try to block it.
They still had Yahoo chat or MSN cam to cam cyber “fun” things. Whats the difference tho..
Hehehe…

But yes i would be disagree if children underage access the porn site. Should be a better way tho…
jawa.apostate Says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I think the new law is just another useless crap by the parliament that are most-useful and most-respected-for-working-so-sincerely-hard-for-the-good-of-the-nation. Sharia was just a reason that simply works with the plan, and even now the Islamic Defender Front has already raid some small shops… I don’t know what’ll happen next.

I heard something about Muhrim Police: when they see you mingle with your loved one (a guy and a girl together just the two of them) these police CAN and will (most) probably use force when necessary to verify that you have THE RIGHT to be together (to make sure that he / she IS your spouse).

Will we all have to walk around daily wearing black table cloths with holes for just our eyes in this lovely country? And will indonesia be called “safe” and “prosperous” then? And every tourist MUST wear that when swimming in Kuta beach?

The idea was good, but the execution is lame.

Anything for this calls for 3E: education-engineering-enforcement. Indonesia HAD NOT started with education at all about sex, now they’re forcing to apply engineering (including making laws and other technical mumbo jumbo) plus (probably) enforcement to sex/porn?

And the smart guys in the government actually think that this will work? Come on.
shorty Says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
making something illegal doesn’t stop it. laws are useless unless they have the support of the community at large, and can be enforced.

ri can only control isp’s based in indonesia……….myspace/facebook/1001+ file sharing programmes? realise that a lot of what is defined as ‘porn’ in ri wouldn’t raise an eyebrow elsewhere.

by all means try to draw a line at pedophillia, snuff…….but activity between consenting adults ? (provided they’ve signed a release.)

seems to me a little like the old political maxim of being seen to be doing something, rather than doing something….this confuses you? that’s the intention - they can always say we had a debate and passed a law…….

remember legislation is not truth, it is a compromise struck between conflicting parties, designed to enhance the re-election prospects of the legislator.

why ‘duckshove’ ? you’re the parent/teacher/boss/friend/whatever………you only need the law if you’ve failed in your resonsibilty.
tomaculum Says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Read this:

http://kompas.com/index.php/read/xml/2008/04/03/17333218/cegah.ngeseks.celana.pemijat.digembok
Patung Says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Tomaculum, that looks right up my alley.