Communications and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring said Friday he would not close his Twitter account despite widespread controversy and public derision of his use of the popular micro-blogging service.
Tifatul, who represents the Islamic-based Justice and Prosperous Party (PKS) in the Cabinet, has been “tweeting” under the name @tifsembiring since Oct. 20, 2009.
The minister said his fondness for Twitter was justified as part of a “holy fight” to teach the public polite behavior.
“I won’t close the account because I have more than 57,000 followers — that’s a lot,” he added.
It was not unusual for other Twitter users to unfavorably compare him to a goat, Tifatul said.
“Many of the messages that I receive are attacks, but it’s okay. It’s part of my duty to teach people to be civilized and to live in a good way.”
Tifatul replies to messages (called “tweets”) directed to him by users from all walks of life, such as ordinary street vendors and celebrities, he said.
Tifatul has spent a large amount of time since Thursday fending off an onslaught of hostile tweets after he compared Indonesia’s most recent sex video controversy to a long-standing theological debate.
Nazril “Ariel” Ilham, TV presenter Luna Maya and celebrity Cut Tari allege that they are not the people depicted in sex videos that Indonesians have downloaded from the Internet thousands of times in recent days.
On Thursday, Tifatul said that the public debate on the alleged use of celebrity body doubles in the sex videos was similar to a debate between Christians and Muslims on the death of Jesus.
Muslims believe that someone resembling Jesus was crucified, however Christians believe that it was Jesus himself who was killed, Tifatul explained.
It is important to confirm the identity of the people in the videos to avoid further adverse reactions, he said.
“The issue has been blown out of proportion because of provocateurs on Twitter. Those people were not at the meeting when I made the statement,” he said.
“There are a lot of people on Twitter who are ill-behaved, but we are a democratic country. I don’t take them seriously.”
Tifatul’s account lists more than 3,700 tweets as of Sunday.
Around 30 percent of Tifatul’s tweets are related to fallout from two statements: his comments on the sex video scandal and his tweet about Adolf Hitler.
In April, he tweeted a quote that said “the union between two children, when both of them complete each other, this is magic — Adolf Hitler”.
The tweet drew the public ire,and some said that the minister lacked respect for the millions of people killed by the Nazis in the genocide of Jewish people in World War II.
Forty-five percent of Tifatul’s tweets were daily greetings, poetry, jokes, or about his party. Tifatul discussed Communications and Information Technology Ministry policies in 25 percent of his tweets that primarily defended the ministry’s controversial initiative to regulate multimedia content. (ren)
