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Indonesia Introduces New Internet Censorship System

posted by mrpg on Wednesday January 03 2018, @08:00PM   
from the happy-new-year dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Indonesia's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry is set to implement a new $14 million Internet censorship system from Wednesday. The new system will automatically block pornography and other content deemed to be unsuitable by the government, following years of manual monitoring which has failed to adequately police the abundance of illicit online content.

The ministry's Information Applications Director General Semuel Pangerapan said the machine is equipped with artificial intelligence that will crawl websites and use keywords to detect inappropriate content.

"After the content is crawled, our team will evaluate and verify the data," Pangerapan told Arab News. "We will then block sites that are validated as carrying negative content. This machine will make our jobs a lot faster." The new system will enable the ministry to identify a range of negative content referencing topics from gambling, terrorism, fraud and drugs, to hoaxes and fake news, he added.

Indonesia introduces new Internet censorship system

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Original Submission

• Re:bet it doesn't block VPNs or web proxies Re:bet it doesn't block VPNs or web proxies (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @09:23PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @09:23PM (#617353)

  That makes me wonder how specific their blocking is... They probably can't block all of facebook, since 71 million people would notice, but they probably want to block a portion of it.

  Also at what point are they no longer "internet users"? I mean if they can only access 10% of the net ...

  Parent

• Re:bet it doesn't block VPNs or web proxies (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 03 2018, @09:34PM

  by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday January 03 2018, @09:34PM (#617361) Journal

  They could block the whole thing. It's a common tactic:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Turkey#Blocking_of_Internet_sites [wikipedia.org]

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_Pakistan [wikipedia.org]

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Indonesia#Censorship [wikipedia.org]

  Media reported that selective blocking of some web sites for brief periods began in 2007–2008. Indonesia ordered ISPs to block YouTube in April 2008 after Google reportedly did not respond to the government’s request to remove the film Fitna by the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, which purportedly mocked the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.[14] In May 2010, when an account on Facebook promoted a competition to draw Muhammad, government officials took a more focused approach and sent a letter to Facebook urging closure of the account, asked all ISPs to limit access to the account’s link, and invited the Indonesian Association of Internet Cafe Entrepreneurs to restrict access to the group. Due to opposition from bloggers and civil society, however, ISPs disregarded the government’s requests, and the account remained accessible.[13]

  In March 2008, the government passed the Law on Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE Law), which broadened the authority of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCI) to include supervision of the flow of information and possible censorship of online content. In early 2010, the ministry published a draft Regulation on Multimedia Content that, if implemented, would require ISPs to filter or otherwise remove certain material. The types of content listed include vaguely worded categories such as pornography, gambling, hate incitement, threats of violence, exposure of private information, intellectual property, false information, and content that degrades a person or group on the basis of a physical or nonphysical attribute, such as a disability. Following a public outcry, the government announced that it would take time to process suggestions from the public before proceeding with the draft regulation.[13]

  Under the ITE Law anyone convicted of committing defamation online faces up to six years in prison, and a fine of up to 1 billion rupiah (US$111,000). As of June 2010, there were at least eight cases in which citizens had been indicted on defamation charges under the ITE Law for comments on e-mail lists, blogs, or Facebook. Prosecutions under the ITE Law have contributed to an increased atmosphere of fear, caution, and self-censorship among online writers and average users.[13]

  In 2013 and 2014, about 10 sites including Vimeo, Reddit, Imgur, and more are censored as the government accused them of hosting content that includes nudity.[15]

  In 2017, Telegram was blocked, as it was being used to spread "radical and terrorist propaganda." [16] It was then unblocked after several agreements to the government.[17]

  After WhatsApp threat, Indonesia steps up Internet obscenity purge [reuters.com]

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  [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

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