Contributors Urge Indonesia to Unblock Wikipedia Login Access

12 hours ago 2

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A civil society coalition urges the government to unblock the login access to Wikipedia. Coalition member and chair of the Access to Information Division at SAFEnet, Unggul Sagena, said the blockage to the auth.wikimedia.org domain obstructs login access for thousands of Wikipedia contributors in Indonesia.

This move hinders Wikimedia contributors—a non-profit organization managing Wikipedia—from accessing the platform to share and seek collective knowledge. "This restriction damages the collaborative ecosystem that serves as the foundation of an open knowledge platform," he said in an official release on Friday, March 6, 2026.

He mentioned that public knowledge depends on active participation from those with a track record of contributions while adhering to community standards. The login access restriction prevents the editing, verification, and supervision of articles by a community of editors.

"In other words, the core work of knowledge curation in Wikipedia is also halted," he said.

According to Unggul, this approach demonstrates the issue of proportionality in digital policies. The government has not pursued a mechanism for dialogue or administrative solutions that do not harm the public. Instead, the government has opted for technical measures that directly impact public participation in knowledge production.

Unggul views the access restriction to Wikipedia as part of the digital authoritarianism perpetuated by the government using Ministerial Regulation Number 5 of 2020 (PM 5/2020). From 2022 onwards, dozens of digital platforms have been blocked under the guise of regulations.

Unggul believes these laws serve as a tool for arbitrary censorship without due process of law. He is concerned that the future of literacy and freedom of expression in Indonesia will always be held hostage by government policies.

The coalition also highlights the issue of transparency in the internet blockage mechanism in Indonesia. According to Unggul, the public rarely receives detailed explanations regarding the specific legal basis, assessment process, and decision-making mechanism in each case.

Therefore, the coalition, consisting of 83 civil society organizations, urges the revocation of Ministerial Regulation Np. 5/2020 and Ministerial Regulation No. 10/2021. For them, these regulations have proven to be tools for censorship and surveillance that violate privacy and human rights.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Communication and Digital explained that the access restriction to the login feature on the subdomain auth.wikimedia.org has been in place since February 25, 2026, because the Wikimedia Foundation has not fulfilled the obligation to register as a Private Electronic System Provider (PSE).

The Director General of Digital Space Oversight, Alexander Sabar, emphasized that this measure does not block all Wikimedia services. The public can still read and utilize all available information on Wikimedia.

During the restriction period, activities that require user accounts such as editing or creating new articles cannot are temporarily halted.

Indonesia's legal system requires the registration of every domestic and foreign electronic system provider, whose services are available and/or used in the legal jurisdiction of Indonesia.

Read: Wikipedia Requires AI Developers to Cite Sources When Using Its Content

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