New Indonesia web system blocks over 70,000 ‘negative’ sites

JAKARTA: Indonesia has blocked more than 70,000 websites displaying "negative" content such as pornography or extremist ideology in the first month of using a new system to help purge the Internet of harmful material, the communications minister told Reuters. The world´s most populous Muslim-majority country has stepped up efforts to control online content after a rise in hoax stories and hate speech, and amid controversial anti-pornography laws pushed by Islamic parties. The so-called "crawling system" developed by a unit of state-run Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom) was launched in January, using 44 servers to search internet content and issue alerts when inappropriate material is found.

"We just put some sort of key words there, most of them are pornographic," said Minister of Communication and Information Rudiantara, who uses one name. "Because after 2017 we have blocked almost 800,000 sites and more than 90 percent (of these were) pornographic," said the minister.