Recently, I have had some conversation with Tristan Louis here. We were discussing about open internet and the side effects of it in asian country; The discussion isn’t over yet, and i try to explain as much as possible in this article.
Indonesia, a home for 200+ millions of people. also considered as the biggest Muslim country in the world. Ethnically the country is highly diverse, with over 580 languages and dialects—but only 13 have more than one million speakers. the country is suffered from military dictatorship ruled for over 32 years. In 1998, along with asian financial crisis, the country is having a bloody demonstration and chaos to forced President Soeharto to resign in May 1998. One year later, the country conducted the first democratic elections since 1955. However, The regime had left massive corruption through the government official.
After the resignation, Indonesia are enjoying totally free access to information (previously was censored). Newspaper have the freedom to write anything about everything, the internet itself due to it’s lack of penetration are only accessed to limited number of people such as scientist, academician and Indonesian that staying in developed country. A few years later, more and more people are having access to the internet. Some are using it in a positive way, some are using it to spread the hate between people, porn, gambling.
The country biggest problems to date are highly unemployment rates and poor education level. There are quite large numbers of people who still unable to read and write. These people are used by some elite politician to drive them for their interest, such as paid them to hold a demonstration and any other things that you can imagine. But do remember that it is not for the people good, but for the politician’s personal interest!
Remember how Geert Wilder(Dutch politician, creator of fitna the movie) are making mass demonstration in cities around the country, followed by a burning to some internet cafe in Jakarta and Bandung. Another case, there’s used to be an internet forum (indonesia faith freedom), which IF the site is leaked to the public or having a spot in traditional media. I believe it will created a riot as well. The last one which is still fresh are demonstration in front of parliamentary building. How many people are pissed and lost their time due to the riot?
To date, there are several things that the country did to filtering the internet. Gambling and porn are the clear example of the filtered content. Everyone is agreed with the filtering, so what?
I also believed that personally, I don’t care about who is ruling the country. as long as you can guarantee the economics stabilization, safety and security then go ahead.
this is what makes Indonesia are different with america and the others democratic countries. Also if you noticed that a lots of asian countries are having the same profiles with Indonesia. That’s why i think we still need to controlled some of the content in the internet, it’s also for the countries people safety.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Wow 0_O
I got the backlink from the geert wilders it self