Indonesia's Site Blocking Policy "Internet Positif" : Is it Really Positive?

            The term "Internet Positif” refers to site blocking policy taken by Indonesian government in cooperation with some internet service providers to block some sites considered improper so that you cannot access the sites through certain network.
Such sites might contain one of the indicated elements : pornography, gambling, phishing, religious or ethnic issues or proxy. The internet users can also report site(s) that they feel among one of those category. “Internet Positif” was created by the Ministry of Communication and Information of Indonesia to protect the internet users from ‘dangerous sites’. This policy can be understood considering that the growth of internet in Indonesia is in double digits (eMarketer : in 2014 Indonesia has 83.7 million internet users), and it sits the second row after television (Yahoo Net Index survey, July 2011). Social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter have lots of local users from young to old, men to women, most of whom can access from the internet cafes or smartphones. With only few thousand rupiahs per hour, even children can freely access anything on the internet. If parents prohibit their children to go to internet cafes, they still can access the internet from their smartphones. Almost all information can be accessed at your fingertips. Thanks to “Internet Positif”, internet users are not allowed to access any sites that are considered improper to open. This could be positive for young users but many older feel annoyed by Internet Positif since they think it limits their access rights to specific sites such as Reddit, Imgur or Vimeo in the internet network.  So, many people think that “Internet Positif” is not really positive because it limits the rights of internet users to access the site and it is not really effective to block certain sites.

      Unlike its name, “Internet Positif” doesn’t always give benefits to the users since it limits the freedom of accessing the internet. Video sharing site Vimeo was first blocked by Indonesian government. Vimeo was blocked because it allows nudity, something considered pornographic in Indonesia. Unlike another video sharing YouTube, which is considered follow the government policy, Vimeo doesn’t. A lot of Indonesians use Vimeo as a platform for their portfolios or business. Vimeo is also used to find inspiration from other movie enthusiasts. The same case happens to Imgur which is considered improper to the idea of safe internet. Another site, Reddit, is blocked in an attempt to provide a "healthy" internet that is to prevent access to porn and pirated stuffs. Unfortunately, the ISPs block the whole domain, instead of blocking certain “dark parts” of those sites. Second disadvantage of “Internet Positif” is slowing down the user’s internet connection, so it annoys them when they are browsing the internet and hampers the activities of internet users. This happens because it slows down the browsers when opening certain websites. This also happens if you want to watch a video on Youtube because it creates buffering and it often stops the buffering process.

      “Internet Positif” policy is not always effective to block forbidden sites. First, internet users always find ways to unblock the forbidden sites just by using simple software or apps. There are many cracking applications that are easily found on the internet to workaround the blocking sites.  Second, it triggers creative internet users to recreate another similar site. If one site has been blocked by “Internet Positif”, the site owner can make another site which is similar in content to make the users able to visit the website. This can be done again and again. Third, it triggers someone to be suspicious with other internet users. For example, children will be restricted by their parents who are curious about what the put on  their wall.

      To conclude, "Internet Positif’ is not really positive it cannot censor everything since this system is based on blacklist. The censorship is done by certain ISPs, not by government so users can still access them if they use some corporate connections or use certain software or apply other techniques. However, sometimes the censor is so aggressive that a medical site is blocked due to its contents about sexual health. Of course, you can report to the government that it is an educational site, but it takes time to take effect, doesn’t it?  If you look at from the bright sides, this is one way done by Indonesian government to protect the internet users from unhealthy contents on the internet. Indirectly, this can also be another way by the government to educate the internet users to be aware of internet technology. Before the application of “Internet Positif” by the government, no one knows about proxy server, VPN, SSH tunneling or Tor browser except the professionals who deal with information technology and network. If you browse on Google about “Internet Positif” the majority of the search results shows how to workaround the blocked sites.


By  Daffi Insan