Citizen Lab Researcher Irene Poetranto authored an op-ed published in The Jakarta Post, Indonesia’s largest English-language newspaper, urging for the country’s new communications and information minister to scrap the outdated Internet controls currently in place.
Entitled “End outdated Internet controls, Minister Rudiantara,” the commentary highlights the importance of revising the Electronic Information and Transaction (ITE) Law, which has been used to prosecute netizens and contains far harsher provisions than under the Criminal Code. In addition, it criticized the ministry’s recent efforts to standardize the content-control process (through its ministerial decree No. 19/2014 on the handling of negative Internet content) as over-broad and lacking in transparency and accountability.