JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Indonesian government has outlawed the search engine DuckDuckGo, claiming “it can be used to access pornography.”
Indonesia banned the privacy-enhancing search engine on Friday as part of a current War on Gambling initiative launched by the populist government of President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi.
The War on Gambling has now expanded to the vast amount of content the Muslim-majority country considers obscene and illegal, which have already resulted in bans for Reddit and Vimeo, Reuters reported.
Communications Ministry official Usman Kansong told Reuters on that DuckDuckGo had been blocked “because of the many complaints made to us about the rampant online gambling and pornography content in its search results.”
Kansong would not comment on how DuckDuckGo differed from Google.
As XBIZ reported, in June Indonesia’s Communications and Informatics Minister Budi Arie Setiadi responded to X’s clarification of its rules about explicit content by warning the Musk-led platform that it must “abide by the country’s laws, which prohibit the dissemination of pornographic content, if it does not want to be sanctioned or banned.”
X had merely clarified standards that have long been the status quo for the platform, but the announcement had the collateral result of flagging the dormant issue of “porn on Twitter” to local authorities.
Indonesia also blocks Steam and even PayPal, considering them officially “problematic online platforms.”
The government’s current War on Gambling has taken bizarre overtones, with government officials deeming the activity “blood-sucking” and fueled by sensationalist media reports such as news of an Indonesian policewoman setting her husband on fire due to a gambling addiction that she said had left them struggling financially.
Under the country’s harsh 2008 obscenity law, Law 44, Indonesia — including Bali, a popular destination for tourists, expats and influencers — has also become notoriousfor recurring arrests of locals and foreigners making and sharing content online.
“The country’s ambiguous pornography laws have led to the jailing of people over adult content and leaked sex tapes, including celebrities,” noted news site Coconuts Bali last year, when another Instagram influencer was detained for alleged indecent content. “Even so, some Indonesians still break the law, with a number of content makers active on adult platforms such as OnlyFans, which is popular among sex workers.”