Indonesia shuts down 1 million porn Web sites

[Kw3rLn]

With the beginning of Ramadan, the Indonesian government closes pornographic Web sites and hints that it may continue the closure past the country's holy month.



Gearing up for Islamic holy month, the Indonesian government announced it has shuttered more than 1 million pornographic Web sites, according to the Times of India. And it hasn't stopped there -- the government said it has plans to crack down on millions more.
"We will block more porn sites during Ramadan," Indonesia's communications and information minister Tifatul Sembiring told the Times of India. Then, hinting at the possibility of keeping the sites shut down indefinitely, he said, "though that doesn't mean that we will allow such sites to operate during the rest of the year."
Ramadan begins in Indonesia today and lasts for one month. This country has one of the world's most populous Islamic populations and is known for being intolerant of pornography.



Last year, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion came under fire from the Indonesian government. Threatening to block off all mobile Web browsing, the government finagled RIM to shut off all porn accessed through its smartphones. The company complied by developing a filter for all BlackBerry users residing in Indonesia. Minister Sembiring told the Times of India that roughly 2 billion porn Web sites exist and that all of the sites the government has now closed were running from other countries.

Source: Cnet

Kw3rLn Reviewed by Kw3rLn on 20th Jul 2012. Indonesia shuts down 1 million porn Web sites With the beginning of Ramadan, the Indonesian government closes pornographic Web sites and hints that it may continue the closure past the country's holy month. http://asset3.cbsistatic.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/03/19/censor.jpg Gearing up for Islamic holy month, the Indonesian government announced it has shuttered more than 1 million pornographic Web sites, according to the Times of India. And it hasn't stopped there -- the government said it has plans to crack down on millions more. Rating: 5

[Mr Happy]

This is poorly put and could be confusing for the non technical person. The websites aren't closed, they are censored or filtered just like the way China censors some websites such as Facebook or Twitter and the UK as well as other countries censor or block access to ThePirateBay.org. The websites are all still up and running (not closed). It's just access to them is blocked in certain countries. On the other hand Megaupload is closed and therefore can't be accessed by anyone, anywhere.

Sorry for offtopic but I just think it's important to highlight the difference between closed and censored. It's very hard to close a website but relatively easy to censor one which is what most governments do. This is why I believe it's important to draw attention to censorship and what governments are active in this.