Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Cellular operators are united in talking about the need for regulations that regulate cooperation obligations between digital platform organizers such as WhatsApp and Telegram and Indonesian cellular operators to handle negative content.

Smartfren President Director Merza Fachys explained that blocking content in applications such as WhatsApp still depends on Kominfo.

“There is a need for mandatory cooperation regulations between OTT (Over The Top) organizers, namely digital organizers, and telco operators so that negative content can be monitored more effectively,” said Merza during the RDPU with Commission I DPR RI, Thursday (9/ 11/2023).

He explained that opsel is an industry that has quite strict regulations, including in Law 36 of 1999. In this law, opsel has restrictions that cannot view content directly, especially that which is distributed in applications.

“Under this law, we telco operators are not allowed to see the contents of the message. So it’s like postal mail, we only know the envelope, but inside the letter envelope we don’t see the contents,” he explained.

Meanwhile, digital services are not included in these regulations. He believes that the regulations have been around for too long and need to be refreshed.

“We are telco operators here, but what we are talking about is digital space, the digital world. The law is quite old, where the contents of the law do not yet recognize digital,” he said.

Then, he gave examples of numbering questions. Each telco company is assigned a number, such as 0881xxx, for the services they are permitted to provide.

But what happened, WhatsApp and Telegram used this number which was not necessarily active.

“So if you have the number 0881xxx which you use today, then use WhatsApp, then don’t subscribe again because it wasn’t refilled, this WA will still live with that number,” he explained.

“This is one of the gaps because the regulations do not regulate whether the identity of the customer number 0881 can be used for other things,” he continued.

For this reason, one of the points of cooperation they proposed was that the same number could only be used by the same person.

Through the Association of Indonesian Telecommunications Providers (ATSI), the OPEL party has conveyed via Kominfo that there are many regulatory gaps regarding OTT regulations in Indonesia.

“Operators hope for cooperation with OTT, and we have conveyed this to the government, to Kominfo, so that the arrangements are more complete,” said XL Axiata Chief Corporate Affairs Marwan O. Baasir, on the same occasion.

According to him, currently OTT is just riding on top of the network without any commercial compensation.

Meanwhile, Director & Chief Business Officer of PT Indosat Tbk. (Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison/IOH), Muhammad Danny stated, there are many things they can do if they collaborate with OTT.

Apart from commercial reasons, there are also reasons for what OTT can and cannot do. One of them is KWC (Know Your Custommer), so that opsel can be on the same path as OTT and any prevention and control can be done better.

“Through the proposals they put forward, it is hoped that they can prevent gambling crimes, human trafficking, and so on,” he explained.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(fab/fab)