beyondbrics

In Muslim-majority Indonesia, the decision to block illegal pornographic web sites during the holy month of Ramadan could have been expected.  But Indonesian Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring hadn’t anticipated was how difficult it would be to shut down no less than 4m sites.

When the country’s 300 Internet service providers followed instructions from the ministry this week to block “vulgar” cyber content, dozens of perfectly respectable web sites, including leading news portals, went down too.

“Yesterday we unintentionally shut down 30 web sites with no relation whatsoever to pornography”, said Gatot Dewa Broto, the minister’s spokesman. “The speed of the operation was so huge, we hit the wrong ones”.

The move coincided with the start on Wednesday of Ramadan, when Indonesia’s 200m Muslims hold their annual month-long fasting. In addition to not eating, drinking, or smoking during daylight hours they are supposed to abstain from immoral behavior, such as viewing pornography.

Although illegal in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, strip clubs and brothels are found in major cities, sex videos are sold at black market DVD stalls at malls and pornographic web sites are among the most visited on the Internet, drawing millions of viewers.

Despite the technical setbacks and angry complaints from the unintentionally cut web sites, Mr Broto says the operation has successfully shut 80 per cent of targeted material. It will continue even after Ramadan ends in the second week of September.

Broto said the decision to act now was partly motivated by “the current hot issue of porno,” a reference to sex videos of television celebrities recently posted on the web. The graphic videos, featuring the poster girl for Lux soap and a famous pop star, consumed the nation’s attention for weeks. Asked if that was the “hot issue” he was referring to, Mr Broto just laughed.