Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has been blocked in Indonesia by its government after citizens reportedly complained about pornographic and online gambling content in its search results.

The government’s choice to block DuckDuckGo isn’t surprising considering the cultural and religious context, with Indonesia being a Muslim country where gambling is prohibited and porn is viewed as morally unacceptable.

In January 2024, Indonesia announced it blocked nearly 600,000 online gambling portals and took action against 5,000 bank accounts that engaged with them.

The government has previously blocked numerous pornography sites, Reddit, and Vimeo, and imposed temporary or partial restrictions on Tumblr, Telegram, TikTok, Netflix, and Badoo.

DuckDuckGo has now confirmed to BleepingComputer that Indonesia blocked its search engine in the country and that it has no means to respond to it.

“We can confirm that DuckDuckGo has been blocked in Indonesia due to their censorship policies. Unfortunately, there is no current path to being unblocked, similar to how we’ve been blocked in China for about a decade now,” DuckDuckGo told BleepingComputer.

At the same time, Google Search remains accessible in Indonesia, which suggests that either the tech giant has implemented effective self-censorship mechanisms for its local search engine or its size makes blocking too disruptive for internet usage in the country.

Indonesians have resorted to using VPN software to bypass the government’s restrictions. However, the Indonesian government plans to block free VPNs, making gaining access to blocked sites costly.

Free VPNs next

Virtual Private Network (VPN) tools are commonly used to bypass censorship imposed by governments and internet service providers.

When using VPNs, users can make connections from other countries to once again access DuckDuckGo, but free offerings may soon be removed.

Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie Setiadi stated that the government intends to restrict access to free VPN tools, as they know these are used to access blocked online gambling portals.

“Yesterday, Mr. Hokky (Ministry’s Director General of Informatics Applications) had a meeting with Mr. Wayan (Ministry’s Director General of Postal and Information Technology Operations), and we will shut down free VPNs to reduce access to networks for the general public to curb the spread of online gambling,” stated Setiadi on June 31, 2024.

“I specifically have to include the issue of online gambling to make it clear that this is the darkest side of digitalization.”

The same ministry announcement highlighted the risks of free VPN services, underlining personal data theft, malware infections, and making internet connectivity slow or unreliable.