Indonesia’s Tifatul Sembiring: From Government Minister to Net Celeb

Fame is not always limited to just artists or musicians. Politicians – for better or worse – are often the center of attraction too. This is especially the case in today’s social media age, where the words and ideas of many political figures are often exposed raw to the world. Such fame has been attained by Tifatul Sembiring, the Indonesian Minister of Telecommunications and Information.

Indonesia’s love/hate relationship with Tifatul is producing some interesting conversation in cyberspace recently. According to Famecount, Tifatul is ranked as number 24 on a list of ‘top social network stars’ among all worldwide politicians. This makes him the top Indonesian politician on the list surpassing even the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (who is not even listed).

Thanks to his often controversial remarks, Mr. Minister has gained 207,264 fans on Facebook alone. With his active responses and poems on Twitter, he has even more Twitter followers at 238,218. Both figures are growing fast too, despite widespread criticism about him and his policies.

Tifatul has been very concerned with trying to control Internet content that he deems unhealthy. You may remember when he urged RIM to filter the pornographic content on the BlackBerry. He has also tried to tell Indonesians that they need to be more productive on the Internet. He has criticised how people using social media, insisting that it has to be controlled.

As a minister of telecommunication, people pay attention to his comments whether they agree with his message or not. It is rather difficult to determine whether Tifatul’s popularity is based on the love of the people, or because so many are criticizing and condemning him. Nevertheless, he remains open to all criticism and is very active on social media. And as a result of all this, he’s now an Internet celebrity.

[Source: Jakarta Globe]