Vimeo, Imgur and Reddit blocked in Indonesia

19/05/2014

Some Indonesia's Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are blocking Vimeo through the government's TRUST+ Positif (Internet Sehat dan Aman) program and the Nawala program.

Information and Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring announced the ban, saying that "negative or pornographic elements" had been discovered on the website.

He goes by the 2008 Anti-Pornography Law that bans the production, sale and distribution of explicit material featuring nudity or sexual content. A press release issued by the Ministry claimed that several Vimeo channels had been found to contain pornographic material. This was his attempt after blocking a large number of other websites he sees inappropriate.

Vimeo itself claims that it does not allow pornography on its site, but nudity is not banned.

Vimeo joins picture sharing site Imgur and popular online forum Reddit that were also blocked in Indonesia due to "pornographic", "nudity" or "nudity-like" contents.

After the next administration was elected, some of the bans were lifted and some others remained.