The Indonesian government blocked a number of online services last weekend. These include search engine Yahoo, payment platform PayPal and several gaming sites. The services would not abide by the country's regulations. However, PayPal's blockade was reversed over major problems for people who could no longer access their money. This writes Reuters.
On Saturday, Indonesia's Ministry of Communications blocked several online services. Among others, the search engine Yahoo, game service Stream and PayPal were blocked. PayPal's blockade was temporarily lifted until Friday. This allows users to transfer money to another platform. PayPal has not yet commented.
New legislation from November 2020 requires companies to register with the Indonesian government. The law, known in Indonesia as Ministerial Regulation 5, allows local authorities to request data from users of Internet platforms if they believe it is necessary. The law also gives the government broad powers to force platforms to take content offline that authorities believe is inappropriate. To enable this, Internet companies were given a registration requirement. Companies were given until July 27, 2022, to register.
Businesses that missed this registration deadline are now blocked. The online businesses are now temporarily blocked until they agree to the rules.
Large companies such as Google, Amazon and Meta are said to have registered just in time and thus were not blocked.
Indonesian Internet users strongly criticized the measure. Among other things, they feel that the Indonesian online game industry will be hit hard. The new legislation was also widely criticized last year. The Electronic Frontier Foundation sees government access to users' personal data as a violation of human rights. Organization Human Rights Watch also commented on the law and believes the law is a risk to the right to privacy.
