Prophet Cartoon by Anonymous Indonesian Blogger Sparks Controversy

I am grateful to wordpress.com which acted quick enough to close down the controversial blog on the Prophet cartoon comic strip written by –who else?–an anonymous irresponsible blogger. Otherwise, the Indonesia government would have closed down the entire Indonesia’s wordpress.com community as stated by Indonesia’s Communication Minister Muhammad Nuh:

…the ministry was asking the website to remove them. And if necessary, he said, it would ask internet service providers to block access to the website itself.

The blog which has been closed by wordpress.com is lapotuak.wordpress.com, while another one kebohongandariislam.wordpress.com is still alive but is set to private blog meaning no one can access it until get special permission from the owner. I do hope that Matt Mullenweg will look into this matter and close down kebohongandariislam.wordpress.com  as the government’s threat is real. Closing it down will protect Indonesia’s wordpress.com community and in the much interest of wordpress.com as well.

Many good quality contents are there in Indonesia’s wordpress.com blogger community that it’d be so unfortunate if wordpress.com were to be banned because of a tiny irresponsible anonymous individual whose only passion and fondness are to incite hatred among each other. This kind of mess could have been reduced to minimum if the blogger concerned use his/her clear identity in which case the police only needs to investigate him, and him alone and not sacrificing the entire community.

Our freedom should end where other’s freedom begins. You can shout outloud as far as no one feels disturbed. Nothing is limitless in this world simply because we occupy a limited space for ourselves.  If you can’t trespass another land without the owner’s permission so is the land of heart and feeling. Depicting other’s area of sensitivity will not only be hurful to others but will also degrade oneself and any identity one carries: be it religion, ethnicity, community or even nationality.

For those bloggers who define ‘freedom of speech” as they want to define it, keep expressing yourself freely as much as you like. Thing you should not, and can’t afford to, forget is: do it responsibly by making yourself and your identity known. Because, it’s only you, and you alone, who  should take the burden of responsibility especially on specific area of sensitive subject as explained here. As palpable example has already been shown in this case of kartun Nabi Muhammad’s controversy we should learn the lesson wisely. 

The Response

Here are some responses, pros and cons, from Indonesian bloggers on this issue: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. Ricky Pramudya gives a step-by-step guide on how to report such spam hateful-inciter blogs to wordpress.com as follows:

1. Buka : http://wordpress.com/report-spam/
2. Masukkan Email anda pada kolom “Your Email“.
3. Masukkan http://islamidiot.wordpress.com, http://lapotuak.wordpress.com, dan http://kebohongandariislam.wordpress.com pada kolom “Blog URL” (ditulis satu persatu, jangan tiga sekaligus).
4. Masukkan alasan anda pada kolom “Why“. (Tulis alasan dalam bahasa Inggris. Atau tulis “Content is obscene and defamation cause religious and racial hatred“).

The Free Blog Providers’ Agreement

Actually free blog providers have similar terms of service (TOS) as to which content is allowed and which is not. Interestingly most of them don’t allow hatred content. I quote below the TOS from two biggest free blog providers i.e. blogger.com and wordpress.com.

From wordpress.com:

the Content is not obscene, libelous or defamatory (more info on what that means), hateful or racially or ethnically objectionable, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;

From blogger.com

HATEFUL CONTENT: Users may not publish material that promotes hate toward groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity.

So, the early reluctance of wordpress.com team to close down the blog on the basis of ‘freedom of speech’ which didn’t violate wordpress.com TOS according to Yella Ojrak–Indonesia’s wordpress.com forum moderator– is actually incorrect . It did violate the wordpress.com TOS as quoted above and should not be considered to reopen it.  It’s a bit funny on the part of wordpress.com to be doubtful to close a hateful blog that explicitly violate its TOS, while on the other hand they easily close down any blog which put just a little banner of ads in the sidebar! 

Further Reading:

• The Limits of Freedom
• Denmark Cartoon Controversy
• The Clash of Fundamentalism
• Scientific and Credible Blogger
• Anonymity and Credibility
• Being Critical within and without
• Why They Blog Anonymously and We Do Not
• Why Ghost Blogger
• Why Ghost / Pseudonymous Blogger (2)
• How Important True Identity for Blogger