The Indonesian Website Blocking Drama
April 8th, 2008
Just as I expected, the Indonesian Website Blocking Drama didn’t turn out pretty damn smooth after all. Instead of curing a problem that a single movie caused, the mechanism cascades into series of problems. This is what happens when people conduct their decisions with instinct rather than with logic.
Just days after the actual ultimatum, people has already begun protesting, making online petitions, create negative comments, and actually losing their business. Did anyone in the government ever thought of giving them compensation? I doubt it. And if they do, let’s say that there are 1.000 people losing their business over the internet in a month, with a 2 million income per head just from that business. That means the loss of roughly, 2 billion Rupiahs a month. In this country, 2 million Rupiahs can be a significant income addition for most homes. It does help the welfare. So, instead of squishing poverty and increasing welfare, we passively donated to the otherwise. I may not depend on Multiply for my primary income, but some people, if not many, really do. It’s a shame that our government put their rage (or someone else’s rage in this matter) above the needs of its people. And this is only the effect from Multiply, but what about all those RapidShare premium accounts? Who will refund them? The government? Yeah, sure. The electric company doesn’t even have a payback program to the people, why would they concern about some people’s RapidShare accounts?
And there we are, ten steps backward in the IT industry. It is probably safe for me to say that all the years that we spent to build the international trust towards our country, is potentially ruined. All that just because we neglected to understand and wrongfully decide what to do.
Avianto, a friend of mine, has a very-well-put post up on his blog, and in short, I couldn’t agree more with him. Regardless of what the movie is all about, to me, blocking YouTube and the rest of the list is probably the most childish act I’ve ever seen in this reformation era. Besides, just like porn, the thing that’s been in hot debate for decades, perhaps, blocking access to a certain thing does not mean that people would stop looking for other ways to get it.