Netizens have been eagerly waiting to hear if Indonesia’s new Minister of Communication and Information Technology (Menkominfo), Rudiantara, is as conservative and fanatical as former Menkominfo Tifatul Sembiring, who controversially initiated his strict Internet Sehat (Healthy Internet) policy that saw large swathes of the internet blocked in Indonesia.
Well now we’ve got a pretty good idea where Rudiantara, a former director of XL Axiata, stands compared to Tiffy.
“[I’m] against pornography, over my dead body!” he told reporters while he was visiting the house of programmer Samuel Franklyn on Wednesday night.
So Rudiantara is definitely down with the part of Internet Sehat that saw access to just about every major pornographic website on the internet blocked in Indonesia at the ISP level. (Fine, we were used to getting by other ways anyhow…)
What we were really curious to find out about was Rudiantara’s position on Internet Sehat’s more controversial blocks. While banning pornography is generally accepted in Indonesia, Internet Sehat also blocked of access to a number of websites, such as Reddit, Funny or Die and even Oanda, a foreign currency exchange site, which had little to no pornographic content.
The most controversial site block was Vimeo, which TIfatul blocked in May for supposedly hosting pornographic content. Members of Indonesia’s creative communities and industries decried the move, saying the high-definition video sharing site was an essential tool for filmmakers of all sorts in this day and age.
Their cries fell on deaf ears and the ban remains until now. However, Rudiantara seems to have taken a slightly softer stance than his predecessor.
“I hope we can unlock Vimeo, but under certain conditions,” he said.
“They have to do automatic filtering and it cannot be applied only in Indonesia.” Rudiantara also said he didn’t want Vimeo to just provide a warning for “adult content” but to block the content and give users a message like, “this service is not available in your region.”
Rudiantara claimed he had already tried to contact Vimeo’s office in New York to discuss his conditions, but had not yet been able to get through.
Even when he does eventually get through, it’s very unlikely that Vimeo would acquiesce to Rudiantara’s request. The company already stated that it would not self-censor in response to the initial ban.
So if that’s the case, is Vimeo in Indonesia a lost cause. Well, the Kompas article gives the impression that our new Menkominfo might be persuaded, quoting Rudiantara as saying. “I understand that creativity needs to be encouraged. I can understand the concern of friends. That’s why I’m trying to [unblock Vimeo].”
But it also seems likely that he’ll stick to the side of caution, using that favored defense of all conservative politicians – the kids.
“We have a generation to be taken care of. Our children are the next generation,” Rudiantara said. “We owe it to them to prepare a healthy internet for the next generation.”
Well sorry Rudi, the price of freedom is that kids might occassionally see a nipple or two.
Source: Kompas
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