Despite all the news about internet censorship in Indonesia, the country is improving its internet freedom slightly, according to a report released by US-based Freedom House. Freedom House is, to paraphrase the statement from its website, an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom around the world.
In its report, Freedom on The Net 2012, the organization gave Indonesia a rating of 42 out of 100 in 2012, an improvement from 46 points in the year before (keep in mind that a lower score means better internet freedom levels). This is the third part of series of studies conducted in 47 countries between January 2011 and May 2012. Freedom House rates each country based on three aspects: obstacles to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights. Let’s tackle all three of those for Indonesia:
1. Obstacle to Access
In Indonesia, more and more people are getting access to internet. Some notable figures mentioned in the report relating to this are:
- By the end of 2011, 18 percent of the population (about 45 million people) have access to the internet
- The biggest obstacle to internet access is poor distribution of internet infrastructure in rural areas, especially outside of Java and Bali islands
- 43 percent of Indonesian internet users cited mobile phones as their main device for internet access
- 98 percent of the population (about 236 million people) are now mobile phone users
- The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology managed to build internet access and mobile phone reception infrastructure in 5,330 out of targeted 5,748 villages, in its Desa Pintar (or ‘Smart Villages’) program
Based on these stats, Indonesia scores 11 out of 25 in 2012 in this aspect, an improved rating from 14 out of 25 in 2011.
2. Limits on content
In 2008, Indonesia passed the information and electronic transaction law which is popularly known as the ITE Law. The implication of this law on the internet, as Freedom House noted, is censorship of online content. The report mentioned that according to the ministry, 300 websites would be blocked based on provisions in the ITE Law. Although we at Tech in Asia noticed that some initiatives claimed to have a much higher number of websites blocked, such as the Nawala project that claims to have blocked around 800,000 websites. However, in 2012 Indonesia scores 11 out of 35 in this aspect, a better score than 13 in the previous year.
3. Violations of User Rights
The report noted several high profile cases in which civilians have been charged based on the ITE Law. The most infamous case is that of Prita Mulyasari who was charged with defamation by a private hospital in Tangerang because of an email she sent to friends and relatives complaining the service of said hospital. The report also mentions:
Throughout 2011 and early 2012, several other criminal cases were filed under the ITE Law, in some instances for acts filed under international free expression standards would typically draw civil rather than criminal penalties. The cases ranged from a news website editor filing a police complaint over a copyright violation by an aggregator site, to defamation charges filed by a member of parliament against someone who circulated over Twitter alleged photos of her drunk and dancing at a cafe, to a politician claiming another politician had defamed him via mobile phone text messages.
With all these cases circulating, Indonesia scores worse in this aspect in 2012 with a rating of 20, as opposed to 19 the year before.
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