Indonesia shuts down thousands of radicalism websites

The Indonesian government on Monday started blocking thousands of websites containing radicalism and will continue to check the internet as one of the efforts to secure the cyberspace from contents related to radicalism and terrorism.

Rudi Antara, Communication and Information Minister, said on Monday Almost 3,000 websites disseminating radicalism have been blocked and about 9,500 other sites are being inspected.

The action came as the country had been hit by a series of suicide assaults and terrorist attacks for the last two weeks that killed over 32 people in East Java and Riau provinces.

“We shut down the websites which engaged in encouraging people to stage on acts of radicalism, extremism and terrorism,’’ Antara said in Yogakarta province.

He however, admitted that there is a lot of radicalism and terrorism content circulated in social media such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.