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Censorship: Let my people think!
Children are being poisoned by hatred while television stations bombard us with tons of religious preachers, soap operas full of religious themes and censorship everywhere. But all the efforts of the KPI to create a “utopian” world by supervising the TV seem useless.
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Penalizing or warning shows, which leads to self-censorship, is not helping. The idea of protecting children by dictating values is not working. Unwittingly, this practice of supervision by the KPI has led to the monopoly of values and intellectual protectionism. (Shutterstock/AlexLMX)
W
hen I was a boy, Sunday morning was my favorite time of the week. Effortlessly, I would wake up earlier, not to eagerly go to church because a cartoon marathon was on. On weekdays, my siblings and I fought over which station to watch. Back then, TV was fun.
Nowadays, everything seems to be too serious; you can even be given a penalty for being funny. Comedian Tukul, for instance, got a warning from Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) in July, because one scene in his show showed a man being possessed. And such a penalty was issued in the name of child protection.
The problem with Netflix arose using the same pretext. It is silly that the KPI wants to supervise a streaming digital media provider. From a legal perspective, Netflix, the object itself, is not under Indonesian jurisdiction and nothing in Law No. 32/2002 can be matched with Netflix. Basically, Netflix is like an online version of old video rental kiosks, where you can rent any DVD or VCD of your favorite movies. If the KPI or any other bureaucrat cannot understand this simple fact, how can they provide a solution? It’s time to rethink the state’s role in intervening in someone’s life.
Countless times, the reasoning of child protection is used to justify KPI intervention, a poor excuse that has become very troublesome, lacking real proof of its effectiveness. Instead, we seem to see stronger impressions of intolerance among Indonesian children.
The Jakarta gubernatorial election, for instance, brings back the memory of children singing to the tune of long-time popular song “Menanam Jagung” (Planting Corn) but with chilling lyrics about killing former governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama.
Children are being poisoned by hatred while television stations bombard us with tons of religious preachers, soap operas full of religious themes and censorship everywhere. But all the efforts of the KPI to create a “utopian” world by supervising the TV seem useless.
