Fitria Chusna Farisa, Jakarta – Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SafeNET) Executive Director Nenden Sekar Arum believes that blocking the social media platform X (Twitter) is not the solution to stopping the spread of pornographic content in Indonesia.
Arum said that the government through the Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) had previously blocked a number of digital platforms with the aim of reducing pornographic content but in fact, it didn't work.
"So far the strategy of blocking platforms has never been effective in dealing with pornography", Arum told Kompas.com on Sunday June 16.
"Because we can already see for example, at that time the move to block Redit, Telegram, which was beloved would be able to reduce pornographic content, but in fact there is still a lot [of pornography]", she continued.
Arum is sure that anyone will still be able to disseminate pornographic content on social media even if X is blocked.
Even so, according to Arum, the Ministry of Communication and Information is just busy taking dealing with the downstream side, not the upstream part which is the pornographic content producers.
"So if for example X is in the end blocked, it will not be effective either, if we look at what has already happened", she said.
Arum therefore is of the view that in dealing with pornographic content, the government should look for the main problem on the upstream side. By for example, looking for those who produce pornographic content.
"Not [trying] to resolve it only in the context of downstream by blocking X like that. When we want to overcome pests or mice in a rice barn, the way is not to burn down the rice barn, but look for the mice", said Arum.
In addition, argued Arum, blocking X will have an impact on the public's freedom of expression on social media. This is because, according to Arum, up until now X has been one of the main platforms for critical discussions by users.
Moreover, she continued, many major cases were exposed from discussions on social media such as X.
"Now if for example Twitter is then blocked, even though we know that Twitter is a place for a lot of critical discourse, we know that a great many cases that have gone viral are then quickly handled by the state and if in the end everything is blocked just because of the mode of pornography, it will of course also have a direct impact on Twitter's role as a forum for discussion, the critical discussion of its users", concluded Arum.
The Ministry of Communication and Information has been discussing blocking X because its owner, Elon Musk, is allowing users to upload immoral content on the social media.
"This will be studied later. It will definitely be blocked if it has allowed to go on like this", said the Ministry of Communication Director General of Information Applications, Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, as quoted by the state news agency Antara on Friday June 14.
Pangerapan claims that the circulation of pornographic content in X is really massive and for this reason, they have already requested that the platform be willing to delete adult content so that digital space remains healthy.
The Ministry of Communication and Information will hold a press conference in the near future to announce the measures that will be taken by the government regarding the pornographic content policy at X.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Safenet Nilai Pemblokiran X/Twitter Bukan Solusi Hentikan Konten Pornografi".]
