This week, Indonesian Government announced plans to ban access to the blogging site Tumblr.
Under the countries 2008 Pornography Law, the Communications and Information Ministry’s e-business director, Azhar Hasyim, has written to Tumblr demanding that the explicit content be removed.
If Tumblr then agrees to block pornography and LGBT content from being accessed in Indonesia, we will open [access to] the website again.”
The move comes after Indonesia ordered messaging apps and social networks to remove all lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender emoji earlier this month, on the grounds that the images would cause “unrest” in the majority-Muslim country.
The government has in the past blocked sites like Netflix, Vimeo, and Reddit over violent or pornographic content, and has asked Twitter to implement porn filters for users in the country.
The government’s information ministry spokesman Ismail Cawidu said:
No social media may show items that smack of LGBT. Because we have our own rules, like religious values and norms, which they must respect.”