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Porn site blocking to start before Ramadan
The government announced plans to block porn websites before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan starts around Aug
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T
he government announced plans to block porn websites before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan starts around Aug. 10, an official says.
“[Blocking porn websites] will have begin before Ramadan. If some of [the websites] remain accessible, we can at least say we tried,” Communications and Information Technology Ministry spokesman Gatot S. Dewabroto said Thursday.
He was quick to add that the government would be “very careful” not to stoke public fears of web censorship similar to China or Iran.
“We have the human rights law and the press law. We are very democratic, and there is no intention of carrying out censorship under the name of pornography,” Gatot said via telephone.
On the same day, Communications and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring said the government would start blocking pornographic websites en masse prior to Ramadan, the month in which Muslims are obliged to abstain from eating, drinking as well as engaging in sexual activities during the day.
“This will be done before Ramadan so [Islamic activities] are not disturbed,” he was quoted as saying at the Presidential Office by Antara news agency.
Tifatul said the government would carry out the task because it was stipulated in the controversial 2008 Pornography Law. “The law stipulates that the state must protect the people from pornography’s negative effects. We are just carrying that out,” he said.
Gatot said the government had not decided on the right method to carry out the block. One method could be through keyword filtering, but he admitted that such a method should not restrict access to other information that might be mistaken for pornography.
He said the process would not include blocking or intercepting emails. “Intercepting is forbidden under the information and technology law.”
Gatot said the government would work with Internet service providers to block the content. “The ISPs were quite cooperative. They only said they did not want to be burdened.”
Valens Riyadi from the Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association (APJII) said the government’s plan would place a large burden on ISPs.
“We are not in a position to reject the content-blocking, but we want it to be well regulated. The 2008 [information and technology] law also stipulates that the government issue regulations to provide details [on how to carry out the process],” he said.
Valens said there were no such regulations currently, adding that it would be almost impossible to block sites without interception.
“The law forbids us from intercepting, but the only way [to block pornographic websites] is through intercepting our users’ browsing patterns. We want the blocking done correctly. How will this be
done technically? How do we tell which are pornographic sites?”
Valens said.
He said the government should list the sites to be blocked as ISPs did not want to bear the responsibility of blocking the wrong websites.
“If the government wants to carry out this task, they should be aware of the consequences, including cases where a user pays for something on the Internet but cannot receive the service due to the block,” Valens added.
The APJII represents more than 200 ISPs. Indonesia is home to 30 million Internet users.
