Coalition Urges Government to Immediately Lift Wikipedia Login Block

A civil society coalition is urging the government to immediately lift the login block on Wikipedia. A coalition member and head of SAFEnet’s Access to Information Division, Unggul Sagena, said blocking the domain auth.wikimedia.org cripples login access for thousands of Wikipedia contributors in Indonesia. The block hampers Wikimedia contributors — a non-governmental organisation that manages Wikipedia — from accessing the platform to share and seek knowledge together. “This restriction damages the collaborative ecosystem that underpins the open knowledge platform,” he said. He said that the production of public knowledge depends on active participation by identifiable citizens who have a track record of contributions and adhere to community standards. Login access restrictions prevent the editing community from editing, verifying, or supervising articles. In other words, the knowledge curation function at the heart of Wikipedia’s work is halted. According to Unggul, such an approach reveals problems with the proportionality of digital policy. The government should have pursued dialogue or administrative solutions that do not disadvantage the public. Instead, the government chose technical steps that directly affect public participation in knowledge production. Unggul sees the Wikipedia block as part of a pattern of digital authoritarianism sustained by the government through the Information and Communications Ministry Regulation Number 5 of 2020 (PM 5/2020). Since 2022, dozens of digital platforms have been blocked in the name of regulation. For Unggul, PM 5/2020 and its amendments, Permenkominfo No.10/2021, have become instruments of power for arbitrary censorship without due process of law. He fears that the future of literacy and freedom of expression in Indonesia will be continually under the yoke of blocking policies. The coalition, comprising 83 civil society organisations, is calling for the repeal of PM 5/2020 and PM 10/2021. For them, the rules have proven to be tools of censorship and surveillance that violate privacy and human rights. Kemkominfo explains that the restriction on login access to the subdomain auth.wikimedia.org has been in place since 25 February 2026. This is because the Wikimedia Foundation has not fulfilled its obligation to register as a Private Scope Electronic System Provider (PSE Lingkup Privat). Director General of Digital Space Oversight, Alexander Sabar, stressed that this step does not block all Wikimedia services. The public can still read and utilise all information available on Wikimedia. During the restriction period, activities requiring a user account such as editing or creating new articles cannot be carried out temporarily. The obligation to register as a Private Scope PSE is set out in the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Regulation Number 5 of 2020. That regulation requires every electronic system provider, domestic or foreign, whose services are available and/or used in Indonesia’s jurisdiction to register.