Indonesia Restricts WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram Usage Following Deadly Riots

Indonesia is the latest nation to hit the hammer on social media after the government restricted the use of WhatsApp and Instagram following deadly riots yesterday. From a report: Numerous Indonesia-based users are today reporting difficulties sending multimedia messages via WhatsApp, which is one of the country's most popular chat apps, and posting content to Facebook, while the hashtag #instagramdown is trending among the country's Twitter users due to problems accessing the Facebook-owned photo app. Wiranto, a coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, confirmed in a press conference that the government is limiting access to social media and "deactivating certain features" to maintain calm, according to a report from Coconuts. Rudiantara, the communications minister of Indonesia and a critic of Facebook, explained that users "will experience lag on Whatsapp if you upload videos and photos." Facebook -- which operates both WhatsApp and Instagram -- didn't explicitly confirm the blockages , but said it has been in communication with the Indonesian government.

How does one tell...

[anegg]

How does one tell if a government's quiescing of social media communications channels is a well-intended action to counteract inflammatory rhetoric destabilizing a community versus a desperate attempt to keep unhappy proles in line by restricting their ability to communicate amongst themselves?

Re:

[olsmeister]

It starts as the former and inevitably morphs into the latter.

Re:How does one tell...

[lgw]

How does one tell if a government's quiescing of social media communications channels is a well-intended action to counteract inflammatory rhetoric destabilizing a community versus a desperate attempt to keep unhappy proles in line by restricting their ability to communicate amongst themselves?

Hint: never give a government the benefit of the doubt. Founding principle of the USA, after all.

Re:

[MobyDisk]

well-intended action

Government suppression of speech is never a well-intended action.

Re:

[MobyDisk]

IMHO, that is definitely suppression of speech. Historically, suppression of speech came in many forms. It might be fining people, or limiting when and where they could speak, or forbidding something from being taught in school.

IDK, it would be quite a stretch to call adding latency to every packet and/or limiting bandwidth suppression of speech

Why would that be a stretch if that is exactly what the law was for? Would it be okay if there was a law saying any site that criticizes (Trump's plans for a wall) or (Obamacare) are limited to 10kbps?

Re:How does one tell...

[ShanghaiBill]

How does one tell if a government's quiescing of social media communications channels is a well-intended action

A big indicator will be the duration. If the restrictions are lifted once the rioting stops, that indicates it was well-intentioned (but perhaps still misguided).

But to be clear: Jokowi, the victor in the election, is a moderate who wants to reform and modernize Indonesia. It is the Islamist rioters that are demanding more censorship and oppression.

Re:

[DNS-and-BIND]

Islamists are receiving more and more support from our universities, I'm sad to report. http://quillette.com/2019/05/2... [quillette.com]

We spent a period discussing a televised interview [smh.com.au] with Wassim Doureihi, spokesman for the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir [hizb-australia.org]. During the interview, Lateline host Emma Alberici took a combative stance, demanding that Doureihi either clearly denounce the Islamic State's tactics or admit that he condoned them. Doureihi refused to cooperate, instead pushing the conversation toward Australian mis

Re:

[anegg]

Although both would tamp down unrest, I could see myself supporting the former and fighting the latter. In order to determine a course of action, it is rational to attempt to discern which motive is of primary importance. I am a resident of the United States of America with a healthy respect for the process by which the original 13 English colonies became free and independent states joined into a federation that is now known as the United States of America. The English king and parliament would probably

Re:

[phantomfive]

The fundamental paradox of human government [smbc-comics.com]. You need a mature populace to handle freedom, otherwise they mess it up.

Hammer Time

[Kiaser Zohsay]

Indonesia is the latest nation to hit the hammer on social media

The expression is "drop the hammer" or even "lower the hammer". You don't hit the hammer, you use the hammer to hit other things.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[antdude]

USA's President can do it. :P

How do they block? IP blacklisting ?

[MarkH]

All use SSL AFAIK so guess limited to IP blacklisting. But FB has pretty diverse set of resolvable IP addresses to edge nodes and DCs.

I guess it is catching a lot of other traffic if above.

Re:

[Ingenium13]

Indonesia has country wide filter already in place. It seems to be different depending on the ISP. For example, at least in Bali, on wired connections (usually via Telkomsel DSL or cable), Reddit is blocked. But on mobile networks (including Telkomsel!), it is not. I have no idea why the same company blocks it on one their wired network but not wireless. Other things, like Grindr, are blocked on both.

So my guess is it's similar technology to the GFW, since it's been like this for 5+ years.

My sister lives in Jakarta

[Torontoman]

She tells me the unrest is in a separate part of Jakarta than she is living. That being said they're ready to evacuate her if needed. (likely not...) She messaged me this morning on Whatsap but said they were thinking of cutting social media at 6pm local time.

If ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

... you are rioting based on what you saw in a Facebook post, then the problem isn't Facebook.

Re:

[angel'o'sphere]

No one said facebook, whatsapp or instagram are "the problem" ... they are transport media for "messages" .... shutting them down can be helpful.