Indonesia to ban Tumblr over LGBT content and porn
Indonesia on Wednesday announced that it plans to ban access to the blogging site Tumblr.
Under the 2008 Pornography Law, a Government spokesman said he had written to Tumblr demanding that the explicit content be removed.
The Communications and Information Ministry’s e-business director Azhar Hasyim has written to Tumblr.
He said: “If Tumblr then agrees to block pornography and LGBT content from being accessed in Indonesia, we will open [access to] the website again.”
When Tumblr was taken over by Yahoo in 2013 for $1.1 billion, it was feared by some that stricter content rules would be brought in.
The government in the increasingly conservative Indonesia last week urged other major social media players Facebook and WhatsApp to remove gay emoji icons for users.
The government’s information ministry spokesman Ismail Cawidu said: “No social media may show items that smack of LGBT. Because we have our own rules, like religious values and norms, which they must respect.”
