Pornographic Content Creators Not Charged under ITE Law, Says Mahfud MD

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Mahfud MD disclosed several planned changes to the Law on Electronic Information and Transactions or the ITE Law.

Mahfud said one of the revised articles would be Article 27 (1) regarding immoral contents. It will be emphasized that those charged with the law are the spreaders, as opposed to the creators. 

“Now it will be emphasized that people who can be charged with Article 27 paragraph 1 of ITE Law related to immoral contents are those who have the intention of spreading them to the public, not the people who commit the immoral acts,” said Mahfud at his office in Jakarta, Friday, June 11.

He explained that people who are only talking lewdly, creating immoral contents, and sending pornographic photos to each other via electronics cannot be charged under the law. People who can be charged are those disseminating them to the general public.

However, Mahfud MD clarified it was possible for people creating immoral contents to be charged under the Pornographic Law. 

The government plans to revise the ITE Law, including articles considered as vague such as Article 26 on the use of personal data, Article 27 on the distribution of immoral contents, gambling, and defamation; Article 18 on the spread of hoaxes and SARA (tribal, religious, racial and societal groups) contents and Article 36 on harmful contents. Reportedly, the government will also add new articles.

Read: Mahfud MD: Revoking ITE Law Means Committing Suicide

M ROSSENO AJI