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s a pro-democracy activist, Adnan Topan found himself at the center of controversy when he recently posted on Facebook about a government-sponsored campaign Ayo Lapor (Let’s report), which calls on people to report any websites promoting hate speech, radicalism and terrorism to the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) and the Communications and Information Ministry.

“Let’s use the internet and social media positively,” Adnan wrote on a picture of the Ayo Lapor program on his Facebook account.

The picture was made by BNPT and was shared by several individuals, including Adnan, on the first day of the implementation of the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law on Monday, after the law was passed by the House of Representatives in October despite criticism from human rights campaigners.

The picture shares email addresses of BNPT and the Communications and Information Ministry directing internet users to where they could send reports of web sites promoting false or radical information.

Just a few minutes after Adnan created the post, a friend of his lambasted the initiative and reminded him that the program could threaten civil liberty.

“Where has democracy gone? What happened? Where is civil liberty? Why on earth would a pro-democracy activist act like this? […] Do you want to imprison someone? If we are the ones being reported and have to face censorship, how are we going to react?” Armanda Francisca wrote on Adnan’s post.

Anggara Suwahjo, a researcher of the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), criticized Adnan’s post by saying, “In line with the ICJR stance, we reject censorship that does not undergo proper due process.”

The increasing threats of false information and hate speech related to ethnicity, religion, race and class (SARA) that people distribute online for political gain as well as the misuse of the internet by terrorist groups to encourage people to carry out attacks had inspired people to adjust the stance of free speech on the internet.

After the implementation of the new law on Monday, the Information Ministry claimed to have received an increasing number of reports from internet users about websites promoting radicalism, hate speech and pornography as well as terrorism.

Adnan himself was once a victim of the ITE law when he was controversially reported to the National Police by prominent law professor Romly Atmasasmita over his statement on Romly quoted by a number of media outlets in 2015. He had said the professor was defaming his good image.

The investigation was finally voided after activists protested to remind the police that the probe could risk freedom of expression.

Information Ministry spokesman Noor Iza said the Ministry had received many reports concerning provocative content on the internet since the implementation of the new law.

As of October, the Ministry had received a total of 772,137 reports, of which 767, 760 were related to pornography, 87 on SARA and hate speech and 26 on radicalism.