Research in Motion is folding to government pressure in Indonesia, where the company faces complete shutdown of its Internet service unless it begins to censor pornographic websites.
The country’s Communications and Information Minister Tiffatul Sembiring has been pressuring RIM to block access to explicit content, which has been extremely regulated in Indonesia. Two years ago, it actually passed an anti-pornography law.
Today, RIM has confirmed that it is working with the local government to come up with a solution.
“Research In Motion confirms that it shares Minister Tifatul Sembirings sense of urgency on this matter and it is fully committed to working with Indonesia’s carriers to put in place a prompt, compliant filtering solution for Blackberry subscribers in Indonesia as soon as possible,” said RIM in a statement.
Indonesia has also been hassling every other Internet service provider in the country. It has been a Herculean task as it one of the biggest nations to pass such a sweeping censorship law in the 21st century. RIM has about two million Blackberry users in Indonesia.
Many have expressed outrage over the law, but everyone seems to eventually be willing to comply. RIM is one of the last to do so, having waited until the country actually started pressing the issue. [[BlackBerry]]
