Internet censorship in Indonesia

[2] Although the government of Indonesia holds a positive view about the internet as a means for economic development, it has become increasingly concerned over the impact of access to information.

Indonesia ordered ISPs to block YouTube in April 2008 after Google reportedly did not respond to the government's request to remove the film Fitna by the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, which purportedly mocked the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.

In early 2010, the ministry published a draft Regulation on Multimedia Content that, if implemented, would require ISPs to filter or otherwise remove specific materials.

[2] Under the ITE Law, anyone convicted of committing defamation online faces up to six years in prison, and a fine of up to one billion rupiah (US$111,000).

As of June 2010, there were at least eight cases in which citizens had been indicted on defamation charges under the ITE Law for comments on e-mail lists, blogs, or Facebook.

Prosecutions under the ITE Law have contributed to an increased atmosphere of fear, caution, and self-censorship among online writers and average users.

[6] Around April 2022, Kominfo started to implement censorship utilizing Deep Packet Inspection on mobile provider such as Telkomsel, XL, 3, Indosat, and Smartfren.

[7] One year later in April 2023, Kominfo started to implement it nationally on every border router going to international networks,[8] causing many blocked websites to longer be accessible by simply using encrypted DNS.

[23] In November 2020, Ministerial Regulation 5 (MR5) was implemented, introducing a number of major obligations on all private electronic service operators (ESOs) that do business in Indonesia.

[24][25] MR5 has been criticised by human rights and free speech organisations such as Article 19 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for its wide scope, mandating all internet services to be registered with the government, and the vague definition of "prohibited" content.