STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT. Communications and Information Ministry Director Usman Kansong said the government has discussed the formulation of a publisher rights regulation with the relevant stakeholders. During a discussion in Jakarta, Kansong said that the government “has tried to find common ground” with various parties, including digital platforms.
However, they said that they did not yet have an algorithm to carry out such news selection and did not consider this to be a part of their duties. After the discussion, they finally agreed to an article in the draft presidential decree, which states that platforms will not distribute news content that is not in accordance with the journalistic code of ethics, Usman said.
President Jokowi has not yet signed the planned presidential regulation on media sustainability, and it will only take effect later this year once he does, but it has already created controversy. Modeled after the Australian media bargaining code, the regulation will require big tech companies to pay media firms for news published on their platforms.
If the current iteration comes into force — the result of three years wrangling among the government, media companies, the Press Council and major tech platforms — it will require tech giants to prioritize legacy media outlets and those sanctioned by the Press Council in their search results. Google also expressed concern that the planned regulation would shut the door on content creators, citizen journalists and personalities who publish their work through channels not sanctioned by the Press Council.
In a recent interview with CNBC Indonesia, Communications and Information Minister Budi Arie revealed that the ministry intends to establish a social media supervisory board to preserve democracy. He believes a supervisory team is needed to keep the public from going too far in their expression.
Budi said the idea of social media monitoring came from the Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Coordinating Minister Mahfud M.D. and refers to global trends where the negative side of progress needs to be eroded to make way for the positive. He added that social media monitoring’s benefits to society were being extensively studied. The monitoring team includes government officials, academics, NGOs, and community members.
Indonesia supported the recent adoption of a U.N. resolution on violence against religious symbols or books that constitute a violation of international law, according to the permanent representative of Indonesia to the United Nations Arrmanatha Nasir.
The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled “Promoting Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue and Tolerance in Countering Hate Speech.” The resolution was drafted by Morocco and co-sponsored by 47 countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, as Nasir told ANTARA.
Google criticized the new presidential regulation in Indonesia regarding journalism or known as the Presidential Decree on Quality Journalism as this regulation is considered to threaten the sustainability of journalism in the country. Google Asia Pacific (APAC) Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy Michaela Browning said the latest draft of the regulation cannot be implemented if passed without changes.
She said the regulation would limit the diversity of news sources for the public as it gives a non-governmental organization the power to determine what content appears online and which news publishers are allowed to earn advertising revenue. The Communications and Information Ministry submitted a draft presidential regulation on media sustainability to the State Secretariat for President Jokowi’s consideration and signing.
The ministry said the planned regulation would require digital platforms, including Google and Meta, to prioritize news from media outlets verified by the Press Council and to take down news that was not in accordance with the Press Law or journalistic ethics from their search engines and other features.
The Institute for Community Studies and Advocacy (ELSAM) criticized Communications and Information Minister Budi Arie Setiadi’s proposal regarding the establishment of a supervisory agency for social media. They consider such a move is inappropriate and will only open up space for mass surveillance of social media.
“[This] threatens the right to privacy, and ultimately reduces the excitement of freedom of expression because people become afraid to express their opinions on social media,” said ELSAM’s official statement on Sunday. The Communications and Information Ministry, they continued, should be able to push for improvements in content-creating regulations in the revision of the Information and Electronic Transaction (ITE) Law.
Budi Arie Setiadi, the new Communications and Information Minister, planned to establish a monitoring agency for social media six hours after being sworn in. He stated that this agency would monitor content on platforms such as Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. “I think it is crucial to have a social media supervisory agency. It can be in the form of a social media council or an internet monitoring commission or whatever.
We have not finalized it yet. But, we want this to remain community-based, the control must also come from the community, not only from the government,” said Budi on Friday, adding that the idea actually came from Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Coordinating Minister Mahfud M.D. who was the acting communications and information minister.
Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) Executive Director Damar Juniarto deemed that there are too many social media monitoring teams from the government. However, the formation of a new social media monitoring team may have significant implications in the context of the 2024 election.
Communication and Information Deputy Minister Nezar Patria promised that social media supervisors would not limit citizens’ freedom of speech in cyberspace. “No. It will not limit people’s activities on social media,” said Nezar after a book review event in Cikini, Central Jakarta.
Nezar said that the social media supervisory agency’s role would be to monitor online content that has the potential to disturb the public, such as online gambling, which has been so popular lately. Then, pornographic and radical content that has the potential to break up national unity, and other issues on the list of content to watch out for. “So it has absolutely nothing to do with restrictions on freedom of speech or freedom of expression,” Nezar explained.
