"We continue to clean it (objectionable sites and accounts) every day through the surveillance system that exists in Kominfo," Minister of Communication and Informatics Johnny G. Plate stated here on Tuesday.
According to Plate, the ministry acts stringently against online gambling sites, one of the illegal content platforms in Indonesia, on a daily basis. The ministry has blocked at least 15 electronic system organizers that offer online gambling.
Online gambling cases, while have been declared illegal by the government, are quite hard to eradicate.
According to the minister, handling online gambling is akin to killing one and thousand growing in its place.
Handling online gambling necessitates hard work and collaboration both in the digital and the real world. In the digital world, the ministry continues to block emerging gambling sites and accounts, he noted.
Meanwhile, in the physical world, online gambling cases are handled by the law enforcement apparatus, including the police.
"This is a good collaboration," Plate remarked.
During the period from 2018 to August 22, 2022, the ministry has blocked access to 566,332 pieces of content related to online gambling. From the start of the year to August 22, the ministry had blocked 118,320 pieces of gambling content.
In 2018, the pieces of content blocked reached 84,484 and that figure declined to 78,306 in 2019. The number of pieces of gambling content blocked increased to 80,305 in 2020 and rose sharply to 204,917 in 2021.
Blocking gambling sites is not the only way that the ministry eradicates online gambling from Indonesia's digital space.
The ministry also relies on digital literacy, so that the people are not easily affected by negative content in the digital space, including online gambling.
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Translator: Natisha A, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Sri Haryati
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