International payments platform Paypal was the latest to fall prey to the regulation last week for failure to register with the ministry by the July 27 deadline. But due to mounting public complaints, the blockage was lifted temporarily from Aug. 1 to Aug. 5.

The uproar over the internet blockages is just the tip of the iceberg of controversy with regard to content moderation principles and data protection. One fundamental issue that the government needs to be aware of is that the internet cannot be governed alone – in this case by the government itself.

The licensing regime’s main intention is to create a “safe and productive digital space” by bonding ESPs to a set of content-moderating regulations that enable the government to order the removal of content that “incites unrest” or “disturbs public order” within 24 hours, or four hours if deemed urgent.

Notwithstanding the ambiguous wording in the regulation, the lack of due process and the virtually impossible amount of time for ESPs to comply with takedown requests, no amount of government goodwill is enough to attain such a goal without public support.

Such support has gone in the opposite direction with no less than 110,000 tweets with the #BlokirKominfo (Communications and Information Ministry Block) hashtag on Twitter over the weekend.

The public did not urge the non-compliant ESPs to “just register within the system and be done with it” like what the ministry might have hoped. Instead, the public has put the blame on the ministry for failing to come up with a mitigation strategy for services disrupted by the blockage.

The popular opposition to the ministry’s internet blockage is valid, since the regulation itself sits on the problematic Government Regulation No. 71/2019 on electronic systems and transactions and the draconian Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, which has had a long history of misuse against democracy activists.

Hence it comes as no surprise that the petition to repeal the controversial regulation led by digital rights watchdog the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFENET) has quickly received more than 7,000 public signatories. The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH), in fact, called the government’s policy a first step toward digital authoritarianism.

The memories of the public and civil society are also filled with the government’s draconian digital history of internet blockages and blackouts in Papua in 2021 and in Wadas village in Purworejo, Central Java, earlier this year, among other incidents. This further erodes the already thin public trust in a government-centric regulation of the internet.

The quest to find balance between online safety and digital rights does not have to be a conundrum. The key lies in meaningful dialogue between the government and civil society. However, civil society’s room for discussion is limited, let alone the extent to which it has been permitted to contribute to shaping the regulations.

The support for the regulations from popular ESPs is also limited, evident in the last-minute registration of many foreign tech companies despite deadline extensions. This is understandable since the creation of ministerial regulations No. 5/2020 and No. 10/2021 only involved certain ESPs in a limited capacity.

The regulations also lack appeal mechanisms and transparency for government requests, which limits digital platforms’ leeway in moderating content on their own platforms.

This is not to mention that the risk of disincentivizing digital economy growth by internet blockages outweighs their intended benefits. The blockage has arguably hit the e-sports industry the hardest, with popular e-sports games like Dota2 and Counter-Strike becoming inaccessible. EVOS e-sports data shows that of the 274.5 million gamers in Southeast Asia in 2021, Indonesia accounted for 43 percent, with US$2.08 million in revenue. The growing e-sports industry has to face yet more uncertainty going forward.

Lastly, ESPs might also risk infringing on their own privacy policies because submitting to the regulation may enable the government to access their users’ data. With the likes of the 2021 Electronic Health Alert Card (eHAC) and 2021 BPJS Kesehatan universal healthcare scheme data breaches, as well as the sluggish deliberation of the much-awaited personal data protection bill, the government is hardly making a case for itself as a responsible custodian of people’s data.

This online brouhaha may be over soon. Noncompliant platforms like Yahoo, Steam and Epic Games might sooner or later give in and comply. The ministry, on the other hand, may gain regulatory compliance from online platforms to boost its regulation’s legitimacy while eluding public rage. After all, restoring access to the websites takes no more than 10 to 20 minutes, as soon as the foreign ESPs register with the Online Single Submission Risk-Based Approach (OSS RBA) system.

As of Wednesday, access to Yahoo and Steam is being “normalized” by Kominfo after initial contact with their representatives. However, they have not finished their registration. The ministerial regulation states that access to the platforms can be blocked again in the future. Such a regulation puts ESPs in a rather subservient position vis-à-vis the government, rather than standing on an equal ground.

In any case, unblocking the internet is one thing, but unblocking the rights of civil society, online platforms and the public to co-govern the internet is another. Kominfo would do well to adhere to the spirit of equitable and constructive dialogue among internet stakeholders in the 2021 Southeast Asia Internet Governance Forum that it endorsed and co-organized along with other actors.

If the more essential issue of inclusive internet governance remains largely unaddressed, the trio of the Communications and Information Ministry, ESPs and civil society organizations will continue to be confined to an unending series of dysfunctional relationships, with the public, as the primary beneficiary of the internet, bearing the unfortunate consequences from time to time.

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The writer is a researcher in the Department of Politics and Social Change and knowledge manager at the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).