Kominfo Revokes Social Media Blocking, Why Does the Government Insist on Banning VPNs?

For those who have recently been troubled because social media is restricted, you can breathe a sigh of relief because the government officially revoked the blocking. The reason?

Due to the action that will be carried out by several masses in order to demo on May 22 at various points a few days ago, the government decided to temporarily limit social media.

The reason is simple, to prevent the spread of hoaxes related to these events. The government is worried that the hoax will cause unrest in the community and increasingly make the atmosphere hotter.

However, you should breathe a sigh of relief, because in the end the government officially lifted the ban today. What is the reason?

Action 22 May

Social media restrictions occur because there are some masses from supporters 02 who are demonstrating at several points such as the Bawaslu office (General Election Supervisory Agency) and KPU (General Election Commission) to sue the election results.

The action which initially took place peacefully became chaotic. It was alleged that the existence of the provocateurs triggered a clash between the apparatus and the masses.

In order to avoid confusing news, the government decided to limit the use of social media which has the potential to become a field to spread hoaxes .

However, this decision was protested by many people. The reason is that their activities are disrupted especially those who work by utilizing social media.

Almost all social media like Instagram , Facebook , and WhatsApp can't function normally.

(Yes, sorry for Twitter not being considered as social media)

In the end, the public is busy using free VPN services to be able to move on social media as usual.

Government Reasons for Revoking Restrictions

After going on for approximately three days, the government finally revoked the social media restrictions.

Reporting from various sources, the Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) announced this revocation on Saturday (9/25) at around 13.00 WIB.

According to Rudiantara as the Minister of Communication and Information Technology, the restrictions were lifted because the situation after the riots was conducive compared to a few days ago.

Therefore, people are able to use social media normally, although not all of them immediately return to normal as usual.

Some people still complain that they are still a little hampered to access their social media such as Instagram and Facebook.

Jaka itself actually no longer has difficulty opening social media applications that are blocked by the government today. How about you?

Block and VPN

Maybe some of you don't understand VPN . In short, VPN stands for Virtual Private Network .

After the name, this application or service is a network that connects various networks on the internet (usually using a server or other country's internet connection).

In other words, your identity as an internet user will be a 'secret' and you can penetrate sites blocked by the government, including social media which yesterday was blocked by the government.

The way to use VPN is very easy, so many people use VPN for three days yesterday to still be able to exist on social media

If you pay attention to Play Store in the last few days, the top five applications are VPN applications. They are Turbo VPN , Free VPN , 1.1.1.1 , Super VPN Free , and Free VPN Unlimited Proxy .

In fact, there were 16 VPN applications among 20 applications that were included in the list of top trending and top free .

The problem is, not all VPNs are safe, gang!

Money is gone because of VPN

Some people who use VPNs claim their money is gone after using a VPN. The use of m-Banking is alleged to be the main factor.

Previously, the Minister of Communication and Information had suggested being careful in using VPN , especially for free.

Free VPNs make our personal data open easily to be infiltrated by hackers , such as what happens to some victims.

The danger is not playing, gang. If we access m-Banking when connected to a VPN, there is an opportunity for hackers to steal personal data such as PIN numbers!

When Jaka searches on social media, many people confide their balance has been drained due to using m-Banking when conditions are connected to VPN.

Still Need to Use a VPN?

Social media restrictions have been officially revoked by the government. Does that mean we need to delete the VPN application that we have already installed?

If you use a VPN just to access banned sites that are blocked by the government, you can delete it, gang!

Since the time of Tifatul Sembiring is still the Minister of Communication and Information Technology, the government has been diligent in blocking pornographic, gambling and so on sites.

The reason is that there are too many risks that can harm yourself, as experienced by people who lose their money when doing banking transactions using VPN.

Moreover, Kominfo also gave an appeal to uninstall the VPN applications .

The final word

With the lifting of these restrictions, of course we can use social media as usual. There is a lesson that can be learned from this incident.

We must be able to use social media wisely, because we already feel how unpleasant it is if our access is restricted.

Hopefully with this event, we can be even wiser in using social media, such as not uttering hate speech or spreading hoaxes.

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