June 6, 2024
JAKARTA – The government has warned it could block social media platform X for allowing users to showcase vulgar and pornographic content.
The Communications and Information Ministry underlined that the prevailing laws in the country prohibited pornographic content on all social media platforms.
“We already have a mechanism to prevent pornography in the digital realm, for example by filtering keywords related to pornography,” Usman Kansong, the ministry’s information and public communication director general, said as quoted by Kompas.com.
Such prohibitions were stipulated in the Pornography Law and the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law.
Usman further emphasized that the ministry would not hesitate to impose sanctions on the social media platform for violating the regulations.
“The ministry can take [several firm] actions, from giving warnings and taking down content, to blocking access to [X],” he added.
X updated its policies on June 3 to formally allow consensual adult content, as long as it is clearly labeled as such.
The move appears to formalize a policy that was already in place when the platform was called Twitter. Billionaire Elon Musk purchased the platform in 2022 and rebranded it as X.
In a recent update on its website, the United States-based company said users should be able “to create, distribute and consume material related to sexual themes as long as it is consensually produced and distributed,” adding that sexual expression “can be a legitimate form of artistic expression”.
Exposure to graphic material will be restricted for children and adult users who choose not to see it, and users will not be allowed to share content “promoting exploitation, nonconsent, objectification, sexualization or harm to minors, and obscene behaviors”, according to the revised policy.