Blocking of Telegram to Be Lifted This Week

Indonesia to lift ban on Telegram message service over security.

Jakarta, mINA – The Communication and Informatics Ministry will normalize Web-based application Telegram this week since its blocking since July 14, 2017.

“We are making preparations for normalization or unblocking of Telegram within this week,” Samuel A Pangerapan, director general for application and informatics, Antara News reported, citing a joint press conference between the ministry and Telegram CEO Pavel Durov here on Tuesday.

Durov held a meeting with Communication and Informatics Minister Rudiantara to discuss the follow up of negative content handling mechanism, particularly when it concerns terrorism, and the ministrys plan to end blocking of Telegram.

In the meeting, the two parties agreed to open a special communication channel for the ministry and Telegram in order to prevent negative contents effectively and swiftly.

Durov told the press that the blocking of Telegram by the ministry was due to misunderstanding, while the two parties were communicating via e-mail.

In the meeting, Telegram and the ministry have agreed to carry out direct communication to deal with negative contents.

Durov remarked that his company was concerned about terrorism contents and shared a similar commitment with the Communication and Informatics ministry concerning counterterrorism.

He revealed that Telegram was committed to work faster to “shut down publicly available content related to ISIS and propaganda of terrorism.”

“Telegram is very much concerned about global terrorist threat, particularly in a country like Indonesia,” he explained.

Being radicalized after reading Telegram

Rudiantara has expressed appreciation to Durov for his response and his visit to Jakarta to meet him and discus the problem.

“I laud Telegram for being very responsive concerning this issue,” Rudiantara stated.

In July this year, the ministry restricted computer access to Telegram because of content related to radicalism and terrorism, including tips on assembling bombs and launching attacks.

Indonesia imposed the partial ban after it suffered a string of attacks, including one by a man whom police said was radicalized after reading material on Telegram.

Telegram is a free Russian-designed messaging app that lets people exchange messages, photos, and videos in groups of 10 thousand people. It has attracted about 100 million users since its launch in 2013.

The ministry had sent request to Telegram to block thousands of terrorism-related contents that were distributed in 11 DNS during the period from March 29 to July 11, 2017. (T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)