Indonesia said it has banned the privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo, citing concerns that it could be used to access pornography and online gambling websites which are illegal in the country, the communications ministry said on Friday.

Indonesia, with the world’s biggest Muslim population, has strict rules that ban the sharing online of content deemed obscene. Social media platform Reddit and video-hosting platform Vimeo, opens new tab are blocked.

Usman Kansong, a communications ministry official, told Reuters that DuckDuckGo had been blocked “because of the many complaints made to us about the rampant online gambling and pornography content in its search results.”

The ministry did not say how DuckDuckGo differs from other search engines such as Alphabet’s, opens new tab Google but on its website, DuckDuckGo said it offered several products intended to “help people protect their online privacy” including the search engine, which it said has been praised by privacy advocates.

Indonesia has vowed to crack down on online gambling in recent months and has banned access to several such websites. Though illegal, government data showed 3 million Indonesians went online to gamble last year, spending an estimated $20 billion, or about 1.5% of gross domestic product.

  • @hotpot8toe
    link
    English
    117
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    deleted by creator

    • @Warl0k3
      link
      English
      652 months ago

      Totally unrelated to the OP but damn I’m impressed that DDG is such a large percentage of the market. 1.28% sounds like nothing but I can’t even guess how many millions of searches that is, that’s absolutely wild. well done duckfriends.

      • ddh
        link
        fedilink
        English
        182 months ago

        Maybe one can change their religion to bypass it then

      • @hotpot8toe
        link
        English
        12
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        deleted by creator

      • @TheBigBrother
        link
        English
        02 months ago

        Look for a VPN, good luck!! remember abusing porn it’s bad.

              • @TheBigBrother
                link
                English
                12 months ago

                That’s pretty hard, you can even selfhost your VPN outside the country, which it’s harder to block.

            • Jeena
              link
              fedilink
              42 months ago

              Most of the time it is not necessary. For the few times I need it, I set up WireGuard on my parents router in Germany and can connect to it.

    • Lee Duna
      link
      fedilink
      English
      102 months ago

      My guess? This is just PR from their politicians to say “they are saving the country” or whatever bullshit without actually doing anything useful

      This is just some of BS public stunts, they are trying to hide and create misinformation to deceive people. The mastermind of the online gambling issue here, is one of their cronies. A businessman, this guy being protected by top military brass and former general including a new elected president.

    • Ace! _SL/S
      link
      fedilink
      English
      72 months ago

      My guess? This is just PR from their politicians to say “they are saving the country” or whatever bullshit without actually doing anything useful

      My guess? They’re trying to suck up to Google