PayPal Blocked in Urgency by Indonesia
Due to a certain outbreak, the Indonesian Communication Ministry blocked several public services on Saturday such as:
- PayPal (Online Payment Service)
- Yahoo (Search Engine Website)
- Online Gaming Services
After a severe dispute between the govt. Authorities and several industries that store consumers’ data, govt. communication ministry blocked such services. But after some time, they opened up some platforms for the public’s convenience.
This happened because of failures in meeting deadlines under licensing rules. The rules launched in Nov 2020 clearly mentioned that registration is necessary for everyone. As we thought, this gave broad powers to authority to force the platforms in revealing their intentions who were indulging in illegitimate work or something that created a disturbance in democratic affairs.
Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan (sr. official) Communication Ministry, Indonesia
On Saturday,
A post was made on the contrary action of the communication ministry over the social media platform Instagram. That was about blocking the services of unregistered digital services. This made the public go on hype; after a few minutes of update, there was a swarm of comments in opposition to the blockage.
On Sunday,
The government has accepted the proposal of opening PayPal Services for the utmost Five working days. In the meantime, the users will be able to draw their money and switch to other platforms. However, they didn’t get any response from the PayPal Team.
Some Predestined Results
Public reaction was like – due to the government’s sudden actions, the gamers and freelance workers’ industry got a huge blow. That’s because most of the players and freelancers were receiving their payments via PayPal.
Conditions Put Down by Government Authorities
Platforms must get their registration completed before these officials lift the blockade. All this was demanded considering the safety of Indonesian users and the digital ecosystem.
Even after this blockage some of the gaming services companies were in contact with the government allies as follows:
- Steam
- Dota
- Counter-Strike
Even now, PayPal and Valve (Gaming Company) haven’t responded to the emails sent by the govt. authorities.