- 20/11/2017
- Category: Commentaries
When it comes to pornography in Indonesia, its society, religious institutions, and the government often refer to it as something immoral that everyone should avoid. Numerous attempts have been launched to fight the many forms of pornography, such as releasing regulations against porn (Constitution no. 44 of 2008) and blocking millions of websites containing pornographic contents. Nevertheless, with massive Internet and technology penetration, along with a less digitally literate society[i], are the current methods enough to counter the negative impacts of porn consumption in the Indonesian society?
This commentary argues that the government’s policy of blocking pornographic websites neither gives a significant contribution in reducing netizens’ access towards porn nor safeguard the Indonesian generations from porn. Here’s why.
Fake Safety
The Ministry of Communication and Informatics of the Republic of Indonesia, (Kemenkominfo) may be proud to announce its ‘success’ in blocking more than 700.000 porn sites in early January 2017.[ii] It includes social media platforms that are accused of allowing users to spread pornography/pornographic actions, such as Bigo. Kemenkominfo even announced its purchase of around USD 146.7 million (Rp 198 billion) worth of sensor machines that claim to allow government officials to block approximately half of the 28-30 million existing porn sites available on the Internet.[iii]
Even if accessing porn through most networks in Indonesia is now more difficult than before, in practice, porn sites are still quite accessible. By taking simple steps such as activating a Virtual Private Network (VPN)—which many are even integrated to web browsers—anyone could bypass the government’s blockade effortlessly, making the government’s multi-billion-dollar program seems useless. On the other hand, blocked porn websites could also come with new addresses, which leads to the emergence of new websites every day. This is a reality that the government is aware of,[iv],[v] yet the ‘blocking policy’ continues. The question is, why?
‘Fortunately,’ the reality that government’s blockade does almost nothing to prevent people from watching porn from online sources still serves the government’s interests. The policy reflects the good intention of a regime with moral standards. With the online blockade, government depicts itself as a moral police or even the enforcer of religious values highly upheld by the Indonesian society. This depiction may satisfy the right-wingers, conservatives, naive individuals/organizations, or technology illiterate persons. Looking at the current political situation and how religious-related hoax or religious radicalism has spread among Indonesian netizens, those categories have a surprisingly huge amount of members, although the exact number is not available. The policy gives the illusion to those people that the government has done something so that the children/future generations is safer from the danger of porn today than before, while it is not the case.
Sex Education and Porn
Let’s accept the ugly truth that a significant portion of the Indonesian society—the same society that claims themselves as religious and morally literate[vi]—are porn consumers. A study in 2013 stated that porn was widely consumed among Indonesian citizens, similar to those in sexually liberal, Western countries.[vii] Compared to other nations, even if Indonesia is among the top 5 ‘Muslim’ countries with the smallest shares of adult websites, it was also found among the top 15 countries with the longest average session time—together with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Malaysia.[viii]
With the easy usage of technology today, especially Internet, social media, websites, and VPN, they will always have or find a way to consume adult contents. Children can always outsmart their parents in using gadgets. Therefore, to counter the negative impacts of online porn, unconventional approaches must be undertaken.
The Indonesian society and government must treat porn as an unconventional ‘enemy’. Reflecting the condition that porn is massively accessed by Indonesians, therefore blocking porn sites alone is insufficient to counter pornography as the back doors are available, and the motivations remain. Some alternatives are important to be implemented parallel to this ongoing policy. One of those is optimizing sex educations for society, especially on the dangers of pornography.
Sex education is needed by all people regardless of gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, or other backgrounds. Sex education should be taught at an early age of childhood, even before puberty, because it increases the parents’ chance of continuing the conversation about sexual health with them throughout their child’s growing years.[ix] This sex education is supposed to be endorsed and hailed massively by the government as an effort to maximize its reach and undermine the taboo of talking about sex. Following the extensive internet penetration, instead of putting so much effort in blocking porn sites, it is better for the Indonesian government to concentrate on making sex education more mainstream than today, both through online campaigns and through classroom teaching.
Modern sex education should also go beyond the knowledge about what a safe sexual intercourse is, but also an education about porn itself, which is how to handle and treat this digital pleasuring ‘enemy’. For example, awareness to not engage with child porn and to not share porn which does not obtain consent from the ‘doers’ such as revenge porn or secretly taped nude videos. Besides, the importance to stay away from addiction is also necessary as too much porn may damage the brain.[x] With proper quality and quantity of sex educations, we hope the future generations’ primary knowledge about sex and reproduction will not be porn, but healthy conversations with parents and scientific discussions in various medium—which gives them more realistic views upon the matter.
Conclusion
After years of implementation, the blocking policy—which stands without adequate complementary support by other policies—has not shown satisfying results as a way to reduce porn access and consumption in Indonesia. Therefore, it is better for the Indonesian government to complement the blocking policy with a bigger and more essential strategy, which is sex education, particularly on pornography.
Picture : www.finchannel.com
References:
[i] Zailani, H. R. (2017). Indonesia Is Not Digitally Literate Enough. CfDS UGM. [online]. Available at: http://cfds.fisipol.ugm.ac.id/article/165/indonesia-is-not-digitally-literate-enough [Accessed 3 November 2017].
[ii] Andwika, R. (2017). Pemerintah telah blokir 800.000 website, 90 persennya situs porno. Merdeka.com, [online]. Available at: https://www.merdeka.com/uang/pemerintah-telah-blokir-800000-website-90-persennya-situs-porno.html [Accessed 3 November 2017].
[iii] Putsanra, D.N. (2017) Mesin Sensor Kominfo Diklaim akan Blokir Jutaan Situs Porno. Tirto.id, [online]. Available at: https://tirto.id/mesin-sensor-kominfo-diklaim-akan-blokir-jutaan-situs-porno-cx63 [Accessed 3 November 2017].
[iv] Prayogi, G. (2012). Mengapa Situs Porno di Indonesia Sulit Diblokir. Okezone, [online]. Available at:
https://techno.okezone.com/read/2012/10/29/55/710486/mengapa-situs-porno-di-indonesia-sulit-diblokir [Accessed 3 November 2017].
[v] Wahyudi, R. (2012). Konten Porno Masih Bisa Diakses Menkominfo Geram. Kompas, [online]. Available at: https://kominfo.go.id/content/detail/1935/konten-porno-masih-bisa-diakses-menkominfo-geram/0/sorotan_media [3 November 2017].
[vi] See the preambulatory clauses of Indonesian Constitution no. 44 of 2008.
[vii] Hald, G.M. and Mulya, T.M., (2013). Pornography consumption and non-marital sexual behaviour in a sample of young Indonesian university students. Culture, Health, and Sexuality, 15(8), pp. 981-996.
[viii] Hussey, M., (2015). Who are the biggest consumers of online porn?. The Next Web, [online]. Available at: https://thenextweb.com/market-intelligence/2015/03/24/who-are-the-biggest-consumers-of-online-porn/ [Accessed 17 November 2017].
[ix] Harris, R.H. (2013). Start Sex Education Early, Definitely Before Puberty. The New York Times, [online]. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/07/at-what-age-should-sex-education-begin/start-sex-education-early-definitely-before-puberty [Accessed 3 November 2017].
[x] Hilton Jr., D.L. and Watts, C. (2011). Pornography addiction: A neuroscience perspective. Surgical Neurology International, 2 (9). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050060/ [Accessed 3 November 2017].
