Why Elon Musk’s ‘X’ is banned in Indonesia

Twitter’s revamp by Elon Musk as X is not going as planned. Indonesia has temporarily banned X.com due to its regulations outlawing gambling and online pornography. But there is a catch. The social networking site is prohibited because its predecessors violated the country’s content rules. Let’s take a closer look. Also read: Can Twitter trademark X? And will the rebranding benefit it? Temporary ban According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Informatics, the site was blocked because the domain had previously been used by sites that disregarded the nation’s strict rules prohibiting “negative” content, such as gambling and pornography. EnGadget quoted Usman Kansong, the director general of information and public communication at the ministry, as claiming that X had been contacted by the government to provide further information about the site’s purpose. “Earlier today, we spoke with representatives from Twitter and they will send a letter to us to say that X.com will be used by Twitter,” Kansong said on Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_12927992” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Elon Musk’s X was blocked in Indonesia for violating local pornography and gambling laws. Image Courtesy: @elonmusk/Twitter[/caption] Due to the change, the platform, which purportedly has 24 million members among Indonesia’s 270 million people, is currently inaccessible to Indonesians. Gatria Priyandita, a cyber-policy expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera that the ministry typically disables websites that are deemed inflammatory, illegal, or harmful to societal peace. “These may include pornographic materials, sites that violate intellectual property laws, those that incite hate or are filled with false information,” she said, adding, “Given that Twitter can be freely used in Indonesia, I doubt removing X.com from the list of banned sites would be a great challenge, so long as Twitter can demonstrate that the domain name truly does direct to Twitter.” X.com has reportedly been prohibited, according to Aribowo Sasmito, co-founder of the fact-checking organisation MAFINDO, because of the name’s unfavourable associations. Sasmito told Al Jazeera, “The name is not too far from XXX, I guess.” Also read: The X factor: Will Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter hurt the social media giant? Similar moves in Indonesia Indonesia, which is the nation with the largest proportion of Muslims in the world, has a reputation for either censoring or threatening to shut down well-known websites. In 2022, officials warned that if popular sites like Netflix, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter did not submit a report to the ministry outlining the content that appears on their networks, they risked being blocked. By registering before the cutoff, all of the websites were able to dodge the intended ban. Due to concerns over “inappropriate content,” including pornography, Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the major telecommunications provider in Indonesia, immediately barred Netflix after its launch in 2016 and kept it off-limits until mid-2020. 2018 also saw a brief government blockade of the Chinese controversial app TikTok. Internet users in Indonesia, according to Sasmito, are in a “dilemma” because of the country’s history of censoring pornographic websites. He told Al Jazeera, “Those who prefer freedom are against it but if the context is pornography-related, then it is more related to religious aspects since Indonesia is the country with the largest Muslim population in the world." Sasmito also claimed that because users could readily get around the restrictions, internet censorship did not always achieve its goals. “This comes with its own challenges. For example, if a domain or URL is blocked, then the site owners will change the address, if they are blocked again then they will just change the name again," he added. Also read: ‘S3Xy’, 'eXposure,' 'eXult': Elon Musk renames conference rooms to match Twitter’s new X branding Twitter rebranding The latest ban follows Musk’s announcement on Monday that as part of a rebranding of Twitter that would do away with its name and bird emblem in favour of a white X on a black background. The Tesla CEO has described the micro-blogging platform’s rebranding, which received a mixed reception from users, as the first step towards changing it into an “everything app” that offers services other than social networking, like payments and banking, like China’s WeChat. By providing such benefits and restricting already available functionality, the service has recently attempted to persuade users to subscribe to $8 per month Blue plans. The temporary Indonesian prohibition is not a significant obstacle. It still entails that around 24 million consumers are currently unable to even try X.com. That might be good news for rivals that don’t have to deal with those constraints, like the recently released Threads from Meta (which is already available in Indonesia). Also read: Twitter rebrands to ‘X’: Tracing Elon Musk’s obsession with the letter More trouble for X The generic nature of the letter X may also make it difficult for the company to register new trademarks and protect them. This is because rival companies like Microsoft and Meta have a tonne of trademarks on X that could obstruct Musk’s aspirations for Twitter’s future. The business has also experienced difficulties updating its signs; a crew removing the Twitter sign in San Francisco was forced to stop due to permit complications, leaving the “er” and old bird design in place. According to Bloomberg, experts estimate that the decision has already cost somewhere between $4 billion and $20 billion in value. Over a 17-year span, Twitter developed its worth and reputation by introducing terms like “tweet” to the lexicon of popular culture. Moreover, Musk’s obsession with X, in an odd way, goes much beyond Twitter. The most popular example is SpaceX, another business that he leads, then there is an AI-focused company named xAI and X Corp, a corporate front company that is also owned by the billionaire. Even his son was given the name “X Æ A-Xii.” With inputs from agencies