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 “War on Gambling” launched by the populist government of President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi. That campaign has expanded to include any content the Muslim-majority country considers obscene and illegal, resulting in bans on Reddit and Vimeo, Reuters reported.
Indonesia also blocks Steam and PayPal, considering them officially “problematic online platforms.”
Communications Ministry official Usman Kansong told Reuters that DuckDuckGo was blocked “because of the many complaints made to us about the rampant online gambling and pornography content in its search results.”
Kansong did not comment on how DuckDuckGo differed from Google in that respect.
As XBIZ reported, in June, when X clarified its standing rules about explicit content, Indonesia’s Communications and Informatics Minister Budi Arie Setiadi responded 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.”
Under the country’s harsh 2008 obscenity law, Law 44, Indonesia — including Bali, a popular destination for tourists, expats and influencers — has also become notorious for recurring arrests of locals and foreigners for making and sharing adult 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 an 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.”