Social Media Blocking Do Not Do It without Clear Solutions

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta- Blocking of social media Telegram should not be done without a clear solution so as not to harm the interests of many people, especially those unrelated to the fundamental issue of the occurrence of such blocking.

"The government should think about a better solution before blocking it, do not block it without a clear solution," said Khoirul Rista Abidin, a research-based health researcher at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in a press release received by Editor in Jakarta on Thursday (3 / 8/2017)

Blocking social media without any clear solution is considered potentially bringing Indonesian civilization technology back to the days of "short message service" (SMS).

He said, not all blocked platforms have negative effects for both community and government.

Nevertheless, he continued, the obviously destructive content such as pornography and terrorist acts and activities must be watched, stopped, even blocked explicitly.

Khoirul explained that his office needs Telegram function as a means to respond to business development in health technology, partly because the excess of medsos has a "cloud data base" with no safe limits for storing data.

"So we save a lot of important data and research results for free in the Telegram cloud, Telegram also has a security system that ensures user data," said Khoirul.

According to him, it is concerned about the government's move to block telegram because its data security threatened to disappear. Moreover, the efforts to save all data and move it to another cloud are not possible.

Khoirul proposed that the Indonesian government should be able to be proactive and not always think negatively that could harm the government and the people of Indonesia, with its blocking measures.

He reminded that the government did not immediately assess the development of technology from the negative side first and do the blocking, but must think of creative solutions in anticipation of technology that carried telegram.

Previously, the Ministry of Communications and Informatics (Kemenkominfo) reported to be normalizing web-based Telegram applications within a period of several weeks after the facility has been blocked since July 14, 2017.

"We are preparing the steps to normalize or unblock this week," said Director General of Application and Informatics Samuel A Pangerapan in a press conference with Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in Jakarta on Tuesday (1/8).

During the meeting both sides agreed to establish a special communication channel between ministries and Telegram to make handling negative content more effective.