TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Directorate General of Digital Monitoring confirms that the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Digital (Komdigi) has lifted the block on archive.org website.
"The website has been normalized after archive.org responded to our request," said the director general of Digital Monitoring, Alexander Sabar, when contacted on Friday, May 30, 2025.
Tempo observes that the site known for providing digital historical data and documents can now be accessed smoothly, displaying various features.
According to Alexander, the archive.org site recovered on Thursday afternoon, May 29, 2025.
Komdigi lifted the block after the archive.org management removed harmful content, including online gambling and pornography, from the site. But the Komdigi officer says the site did not provide any explanation on Komdigi's harmful content discovery on the website, though he admits it's "not obliged."
The temporary block on archive.org was part of the government's enforcement on potential copyright infringement and discovery of content that breached the Electronic Information and Transactions Law (ITE Law). Komdigi notified the management of the block on May 27, 2025, after attempting to reach archive.org in the same month.
Alexander said the block was not a final goal but rather an escalation to ensure global platform providers comply with Indonesian regulations. "After intensive communication and adequate clarification, we decided to reopen access while maintaining strict monitoring going forward," he said.
Furthermore, he revealed that the site, based in San Francisco, California, USA, had also been blocked by other countries. Alexander mentioned that archive.org was blocked in China since 2012, temporarily in Russia in 2015-2016, and certain sections in India were blocked due to sensitive content, while Turkey also imposed access restrictions.
"Komdigi remains open to collaborating with all global digital platform providers, as long as they demonstrate goodwill to comply with the law and uphold user protection in Indonesia," said Alexander, stressing that the government prioritizes constructive solutions to find mutually beneficial solutions.
Alexander urges the public to use digital services wisely and to report if they find content that violates ITE Law through official complaint channels at Komdigi.
The temporary block of the site sparks various speculations on social media, with some linking it to the disappearance of historical archives following the government's national history rewriting project.
Alexander dismissed the allegations. "That's not relevant to this matter, really," he said on Wednesday, May 28, 2025. "We only requested for harmful content to be removed. Once removed, everything returned to normal."
He also maintained that the blocking was unrelated to the history writing project, nor was it politically motivated.
Dinda Shabrina contributed to the writing of this article.
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