Facebook, Twitter and Democracy

A few months ago, the authoritarian governments in Tunisia and Egypt were overthrown by democratic people's movements in those countries.

The people in those countries, used social media like Facebook and Twitter to organize, coordinate and document their movement. Similar method has also been used now by the pro-democracy movements in Libya and Yemen.

The above successful use of Facebook and Twitter by pro-democracy movement has inspired Indonesian Minister of Information and Communication Tifatul Sembiring to control the use of Facebook and Twitter.

Carolina Rumuat of Global Voice Online quoted the Minister as saying that social media like Twitter and Facebook must be strictly controlled since they can be used to destabilize the government. He added that countries like Tunisia and Libya suffered from uprisings because their governments failed to control social media.

After being criticized in the media, the Minister changed his mind and made a statement through his Twitter saying that reporters have misquoted him. He also wrote on his Facebook page that his statement about social media control in front of public elementary school teachers was about the importance of adult supervision on children's internet browsing experience, language use decency and anti-pornography browsing.

I am very glad that Minister finally realized that Facebook and Twitter are friends of democracy, therefore should not be controlled.

Blackberry in Indonesia

I started using Blackberry mobile phone around six months ago, and since then all my online activities became  smooth and enjoyable for me.

Blackberry enabled me to have direct access to all my e-mails, blog, Twitter, Facebook, Blackberry Messenger 24-hours a day, and my monthly mobile phone bill dropped at least 40%.

For that reason, I was so surprised when I heard the Minister of Communication and Information Tifatul Sembiring a.k.a Tifie warned that he would shut down Blackberry services in Indonesia if its management i.e Research in Motion (RIM) refuse to block Porn Sites from Blackberry internet network in Indonesia by 17 January 2011..

And from the recent communications on Twitter, I found that many other Indonesian Tweeps felt the same way too about Tifie's above warning.

Frankly speaking, even if RIM finally agreed to block Porn sites from Blackberry network in Indonesia, I doubt that there will not be Porn sites anymore in Indonesia.

The Controversial Handshake

A photo (courtesy of The Jakarta Globe) showing the Minister of Information and Communication Tifatul Sembiring (middle) reaching out to shake the hand of Michelle Obama (right) during U.S President Barack Obama's recent visit to Jakarta.

Filtering the Internet

The recent controversy over sex video allegedly starred by celebrities i.e Ariel, singer of  pop band Peterpan, his girl friend model/presenter i.e. Luna Maya, and model/presenter/actress Cut Tari has re-inspired the government to regulate the use of the internet.

 
Last Thursday, the Minister of Communication and Information Technology Tifatul Sembiring told news reporters that he plan to draft of new decree in consultation with members of the House of Representatives (DPR) after his earlier draft was canceled due to widespread protests.

Further, President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) has stated that Indonesia should protect itself against the Internet. 

I am not really sure whether such decree would be effective to prevent Indonesians from downloading and/or uploading pornography from the internet considering the internet is almost a border-less territory.

Related news report :
- Indonesia needs Internet Blacklist to stop Porn : Tifatul

- Indonesia must Resist Internet 'Frenzy' : President
- SBY : We must act on webs threat

Tifatul Sembiring & Adolf Hitler

Last Thursday, Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring caused a controversy on Twitter when he quoted German NAZI leader Adolf Hitler's words : " the union between two children, when both of  them complete each other, this is magic ".

The Jakarta Post reported that Human rights activist Fadjroel Rahman has reacted by saying that it is not appropriate for a Cabinet Minister of a democratic country to quote the words of a person who was responsible for the genocide of at least 6 million Jewish people during the Second World War.

I hope that the posting of above quote does not imply that Tifatul Sembiring, former Chairman of the Prosperous Justice Party which is part of the coalition government,  idolize Adolf Hitler..