Indonesians can be rest assured of their ability to post a story and chill after Instagram, Netflix, and Facebook have officially registered with the Information and Communications Ministry ahead of tomorrow’s deadline.
As previously reported, the ministry has set a July 20 deadline for local and international internet services to officially register as an Electronic Systems Provider (PSE). Failure to comply would result in an operational ban in the country effective July 21.
Among the biggest concerns from the policy are bans on some of the world’s most popular internet services, such as products by Google and Meta. The latter company seems to be working on making the deadline, after Facebook and Instagram registered with the ministry today, as seen in the PSE database.
Meta’s WhatsApp, however, which is one of the most popular instant messaging platforms in Indonesia, is not listed in the database as of this article’s publication.
Others who made the list today include relatively obscure apps like Mico, as well as huge platforms like Netflix and Discord.
Google and its suite of services are notably still absent.
It remains to be seen if the ministry would actually ban those who miss the July 20 deadline, but there may be something to its threat this time that so many are finally jumping on board the PSE train.
The ministry issued a regulation requiring digital services to register as PSEs, for the purposes of cyber security and user protection, on November 24, 2020 or face a ban in Indonesia. Yet despite local and international tech companies missing previous registration deadlines, including several extensions, they have been allowed to operate in Indonesia.
The ministry has been known to ban apps and platforms on legal and/or moral grounds in recent years. These include gay dating app Blued, which was banned for its “immoral” LGBT content, TikTok for its general “negative content,” and Telegram for allegedly facilitating the spread of radical content, though the bans for the latter two have since been lifted.
