Gay Muslim Comic Gone From Instagram After Indonesia Warning - M.News — objective financial and political news.
An Instagram account that published comic strips depicting the struggles of gay Muslims in Indonesia has disappeared from the site following a frenzy of moral outrage online in the world’s biggest Muslim nation, VOA News reports.
The Ministry of Communications said Wednesday that the account under the username Alpatuni was pornographic, which violated the law on information and electronic transactions. In a statement it said Instagram had fulfilled its request made in a warning letter for the account to be removed.
Instagram, however, said it had not removed the account. A spokeswoman said there were a number of reasons an account may no longer be accessible including the account holder deleting it, deactivating it or changing the username.
The social media company is regularly in the crosshairs of regulators, rights groups and the public as it unsuccessfully tries to balance what CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called giving people a voice and demands for censorship of content posted on the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms.
Human Rights Watch’s Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono criticized the government’s demands that the account be blocked.
That account describes mostly the problems of gay individuals in Indonesia. It’s no secret that many LGBT individuals are arrested, their houses raided, some are sentenced to prison terms, he said. The Indonesian government does not help them in demanding the removal of that account.
The communications ministry said it appreciated that members of the community reported the gay Muslim account, which accelerated its removal.
Some Indonesian netizens in turn congratulated the ministry. On Twitter, Fahmi Alfansi Pane, a policy analyst at the Indonesian parliament, thanked officials for acting decisively to protect public morality but also told The Associated Press he had never seen the comics.
Local media, quoting the communications minister, reported the ministry would block Instagram in Indonesia if the Alpatuni account wasn’t removed.