Reporters Without Borders calls on communication and information minister Tifatul Sembiring to rescind his announced plans for Internet filtering. According to the minister, Indonesia’s more than 200 Internet service providers have agreed to begin blocking access to porn sites today, the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
“This measure is absolutely pointless, it is complicated to implement and it could set a dangerous precedent for freedom of expression,” Reporters Without Borders said.
There are many reasons for opposing this policy. No list of sites to be banned has been given to ISPs, which will have to decide for themselves which sites should be blocked. Filtering websites inevitably causes collateral damage by blocking other websites with no direct link to pornography. It will also slow down connection speeds throughout the country.
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