Indonesia: internet access in papua province restored

JAKARTA, Oct 10 -- Internet access in the Indonesian province of Papua has been restored, VNA reported Minister of Communications and Informatics Rudiantara as saying on Oct 9.

Since late August, the Ministry of Communications and Informatics had restricted Internet access in the provinces of Papua and West Papua to thwart the spread of fake news and inflammatory content. Later, Internet access had to be cut off following protests on Sept 23.

Rudiantara said Internet restrictions are used to curb the proliferation of hoaxes and hate messages.

The ministry pointed out that the circulation of hoaxes in Papua peaked on Aug 31, when the uniform resource locators (URLs) detected 42,000. The number of such URLs dropped to 1,000 on Sept 12 after Internet access was blocked.

--BERNAMA