Gone are the days when the things one says on social media are inconsequential, or at least that’s the case for Lisa Marlina, a woman who the police are investigating after she was reported back in July for allegedly insulting Bali in a tweet.
Lisa was summoned for questioning earlier this month, Kompas.com reported, where she claimed that she had no intention to insult Bali.
“[She said] she wasn’t serious. She was just replying to someone else’s tweet, and had no intention to insult Bali. It was a reactionary response to a rude post she’d seen,” Gusti Ayu Putu Suinaci, who heads Bali Police’s cyber crime unit, said yesterday.
In the problematic tweet, which has since been deleted, Lisa claimed that sexual harassment is non-existent on the island because Balinese people “enjoy being harassed” and that prostitution is rampant on the island.
“In Bali, there is no sexual harassment because people enjoy being harassed. They can easily channel their desire because prostitutes and prostitution are available in every corner, you just need a little fund. Of course no one will report it,” Lisa tweeted under her account, @lisaboedi, in July.
Lisa’s allegedly derogatory comments on Bali prompted a response from Balinese designer Niluh Djelantik, who took issue with the post and subsequently reported her to the Bali Police for defamation.
According to Suinaci, police are still waiting for a statement from the plaintiff, Niluh, who is not able to fulfill police summons regarding the report because she was busy.
Furthermore, police will also collect statements from experts on information technology, crime and language to examine Lisa’s tweet.
“We are still waiting for the experts’ statements before confirming the [plaintiff’s] report,” Suinaci said.
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