Editorial: Too nanny or not too nanny

Thu, 03/27/2008 12:08 PM  |  Opinion

Tuesday's passing of the information and electronic transaction bill has brought relief, not only to online shoppers but also to parents fearing exposure of their children to cyber-crime.

The pornography bill is still under debate, but at least under the new law it will be a criminal offense to "anyone who deliberately and without rights distributes and / or transmits and / or makes accessible electronic information and / or electronic documents with contents violating decency (kesusilaan)."

The problem with the clause is, however, immediately apparent to watchers of civil liberties because the it does not distinguish between adults or minors, not to mention the vagueness of the term of "decency."

Violators will be subject to six months jail and maximum fines of Rp 1 billion (around US$110,000). The punishments would also apply to those caught engaging in other cyber crimes such as gambling, defamation and blackmail. Good news.

But further government regulations would need to guarantee citizens protection, instead of being overtly targeted by snoop officials who would be assigned to track down whoever downloaded pornography at homes and warnet (internet kiosks).

Indonesians have learned to be wary of any well intending protective measures from the government, and we are among those who would hope the snooping focuses on cyber crimes which matter -- like fraud, child pornography, sex trafficking and those annoying spammers.

Muhammad Nuh, the information minister, has said the law aims at educating, as well as protecting, citizens. The law, he said, should increase public awareness of self censorship of porn sites which are "useless."

To protect citizens and an anticipated 50 million internet users, filters to block porn sites would be set up with internet service providers as part of an national network.

Another part of this network would be the installment of special software at schools and offices.

The information ministry is also providing "nanny" software which can be downloaded from its website for those who wish to block sites with adult content.

The minister, a former rector of the Surabaya Institute of Technology, surely knows that in cyberspace governments can only do so much, and that the geeks out there love to test all the available limits.

The law must be regarded as an initial attempt at protecting citizens; Indonesians keen to make transactions on E-bay once found their credit cards were rejected, as apparently fraud had become the nation's middle name.

But in no way can we accept a return to the old days when vague rules of the game were abused for its loopholes as a means to control citizens.

Other clauses in the new law include those which say those proven to "deliberately" distribute or transmit information which could be regarded as hate speech among individuals or different groups based on race, religion etc would also be subject to the penalties.

With the proliferation of sites on religion, for instance, we have been made aware that many netizens post what they like regardless of how offensive they may sound to others.

In the past, the ban on the discourse of social differences led to problems being swept under the carpet, which eventually erupted in communal conflicts in many parts of the country.

An overzealous intent to wipe out access to "indecent" sites would not just blur the line between protection and supervision of Internet users. Without clear guidelines, it would be easy for the snoops to go overboard and check anything they liked in our private surfing space, not unlike security and order officials.

Having Nanny everywhere and around the clock may be comfortable, only it doesn't necessarily help those she is minding to be mature and creative.

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