Popular microblogging site Tumblr announced two days ago that, starting December 17, it will no longer allow adult content on its platform. That could mean good news for Indonesian Tumblr fanatics as the government says the move could potentially lead to the popular site being unblocked.
Although the the platform is not known primarily for pornography, Tumblr was known for having a loose policy towards NSFW and adult content, which ultimately led to the site being blocked by Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Information (Kemkominfo) in March of this year due to the country’s strict anti-pornography laws. The ban caused a great deal of outrage among Indonesian netizens.
But Kemkominfo says it is now open to reviewing Tumblr’s block after the site’s adult content ban comes into effect.
“[In the past] Tumblr ignored our requests to remove negative content, including pornographic content, from their platform,” Kemkominfo Acting Spokesperson Ferdinandus Setu told Coconuts Jakarta.
“If Tumblr has really removed pornographic content from their platform, and promises to keep Indonesia free of negative content, Kemkominfo will normalize Tumblr or revoke its block.”
Ferdinandus added that, for Tumblr to be unblocked in Indonesia, a representative of the company would have to personally contact Kemkominfo to discuss the matter and pledge that they would no longer allow content deemed illegal by Indonesian law onto their site.
In 2017, the founder of messaging service Telegram did just that, coming to Indonesia in-person to meet with officials from Kemkominfo, before the ministry lifted their restrictions on the app, which had been banned over the sharing of terrorism-related content on its service.
Under Tumblr’s updated community guidelines, photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations “that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content… that depicts sex acts” will be banned from the site, with some notable exceptions including images portraying breastfeeding.
Kemkominfo first blocked Tumblr in 2016 due to pornographic content but later reversed its policy following protests by Tumblr users and rights groups. The ministry blocked Tumblr again in March of this year for violation of Indonesia’s strict anti-pornography laws, and the block remains in effect to this day.
Kemkominfo has for years blocked a number of highly popular websites containing user-generated content, such as Reddit and Vimeo, over the small percentage of pornographic material that can be found on them. In their Sisyphean attempt to block all pornography and other “negative content” on the internet, the government last year invested in IDR194 billion (US$14.28 million) on an automatic censorship system. Most recently, after that automated system proved essentially useless, Kemkominfo took their anti-pornography battle to search engines, instructing ISPs to restrict search enquiries for adult content.
