Indonesia bans Tumblr over pornography; will block 477 websites for the same

Indonesia said on Thursday it will block access to microblogging platform Tumblr over pornographic content, the media reported on Thursday. “After an exhaustive study, the ministry has decided to ban Tumblr since it contains many videos and pornographic images,” said the communication ministry’s e-business director, Azhar Hasyim. The ministry has also decided to ban 477 other online sites for the same reason. According to Azhar, blocking access to these sites will take two to three days. Tumblr, which has about 280 million blogs, was set up in 2007 by David Karp and acquired by Yahoo! in 2013 for $1.1 billion. The ban was announced a week after the Indonesian government demanded the removal of emoticons representing homosexuality in messaging apps, following an internet campaign against Line, another popular messaging application, for the same reason. It was just last week that Human Rights Watch urged Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to protect gay and lesbian rights, a day after his government told instant messaging apps to remove stickers featuring same-sex couples in the latest high-profile attempt to discourage visible homosexuality in the socially conservative country. In 2014, lawmakers in Aceh, a conservative Indonesian province, passed a law that punishes gay sex by public caning and subjects non-Muslims to the region’s strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law. With inputs from IANS