REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Institute for Community Studies and Advocacy (Elsam) opined that closing access to Facebook in Indonesia following misuse of user data by third parties is not a solution to resolving the issue. Elsam's Deputy Director of Research Wahyudi Djafar stated on Wednesday that he had supported the audit by the government and Facebook to find out the location of violations, the leak of data, and transferred data.

"I do not agree to the view that Facebook should be blocked or closed. It is more harmful. I think it is better to investigate and decide the kind of recovery and sanctions on the perpetrators and future planning to prevent such kind of issue from recurring," he noted.

The decision to block or close usually departs from the content-related issues, but for Facebook the issue relates to personal data of service users. Access to Telegram and Tumblr has also been closed by the Communications and Informatics Ministry since the content, including that related to pornography, was considered illegal.

"Telegram and Tumblr are blocked, as their content is considered illegal. However, Facebook has no illegal content so far. Hence, what is the reason for closing it?" he emphasized.

If access to Facebook is closed, the people will have limited access to public information.

In addition to joint audits, Djafar proposed a recovery mechanism for Facebook users violating privacy. The obligations to be met by Facebook, include updating the terms of service or privacy policy to comply with privacy provisions.

This recovery aims to prevent the practices of alienation or misuse of data. Moreover, in future, Facebook should educate users on its services, which usually only record the data or content uploaded on Facebook for large-scale data collection purposes.

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