Less than a week after , the Indonesian government has banned the popular blogging site Tumblr, saying it distributes pornography.
, the Indonesian Information Ministry did not notify the New York-based company before announcing the ban.
Tumblr is just one of about 500 sites the Indonesian government is banning for hosting pornographic content, according to reports.
According to , Indonesia’s Internet is considered “partly free,” with the government having blocked various sites.
In addition to the ban on “gay” emojis, Indonesia has seen blockages of Netflix and video site Vimeo, expressing concern about the appropriateness of the content found on those sites. Reddit and Imgur have also faced pressure from the Indonesian government to remove pornographic content.
The government has also asked Twitter to develop filters to block pornographic content.
Twitter is extremely popular in Indonesia, and in 2012, Jakarta was the most actively tweeting city in the world.
Companies not complying with the requests could be charged for forced out of the Indonesian market.
One popular messaging platform, LINE, announced it had removed gay emojis in compliance with government requests.
Tumblr has not commented.