Donny Budhi Utoyo

Donny B.U. is building the foundation for the responsible use of online media in Indonesia through Internet Sehat, forging a nation of fully information citizens and subtly preempting the possibility of new government limits to the freedom of expression.

Donny is creating a suite of strategies that put Indonesia’s 38 million Internet users in charge of their own freedom of expression. His Internet Sehat (Healthy Internet) project encourages responsible Internet use by engaging many thousands of teachers, parents, and students to improve their online literacy and skills through various training and workshops in partnership with schools or held openly in public places. As part of this training, citizens encounter and agree to a “virtual code of conduct” that discourages the negative excesses of online activity. Together with Information and Communication Technology (ICT Watch), an organization he co-founded, Donny also catalyzes the development of “Internet Sehat” software applications—filtering software and a kid-safe browser, e.g. by local producers that reinforce the virtual code. His organization also supports the deployment of social media by citizen organizations (COs), engages bloggers and journalists and sponsors a blogging award to stimulate high-quality online content.

On the one hand, these services and others promote broad information citizenship, preparing millions of citizens to participate fully not just as responsible users of online information, but as active content creators and distributors who contribute to a rich and varied media universe. But indirectly, they also serve a crucial policy objective: The spread of responsible information citizenship on the Internet, achieved in partnership with government agencies, is meant to head off the looming threat of new regulations that would dramatically limit freedom of expression online. Donny is, essentially, solving a problem before political forces decide there is one.

Access to internet is no longer a problem to the majority of Indonesians. With Internet-ready cell phones that cost an average of US$100 widely available, people can now easily browse, post or connect to social networking sites. Indonesia now has 38 millions Internet users, including 25 million Facebook members (i.e. the third largest concentration in the world) and 4.6 million Twitter users (the most in Asia). But that proliferation has brought challenges: 60 percent of young Internet users, according to surveys, are susceptible to exposure to adult content, cyber addiction, or cyber-related crimes. The National Commission for Child Protection recently received 36 reports of Facebook-related crimes, including kidnappings.

This phenomenon has sparked outrage among conservative politicians—enough so that, 14 years after media deregulation firmly established freedom of expression for Indonesia media, a new round of proposed laws threatens to dramatically limit such freedom online. New laws on electronic information, defamation, and pornography specify stiff penalties for violations. A conviction for defamation online, for example, could lead to a maximum of six years in prison under the new electronic information law, compared to 14 months under the criminal code in the offline media. Meanwhile, a draft bill on Internet regulation proposes a government team to screen online content, sparking protests from news media, bloggers and other members of the online community

Taken together, the recently enacted and proposed bills threaten to limit participation and innovation in online media. They promise to reverse the advancement of freedom of information that was the centerpiece of the nation’s earlier media reform—which set off a dramatic expansion of news media. More important, these measures would have a chilling effect on free speech and access to information, both central features of effective democratic society.

Donny is firmly committed to freedom of information and is keenly aware of the emerging threat to Indonesia’s free speech laws. His strategy is carefully calibrated to counter this threat indirectly—by creating the conditions for responsible Internet use and the creation and distribution of high-quality online content, and by involving government as a partner in the program’s proliferation.

Through the Internet Sehat program Donny has endeavored to show the government that people can take responsibility for their online activities. For this ICT Watch introduced a how-to module for parents and teachers, and a comic book for children/youngsters containing basic knowledge about the Internet, Internet hazards, and means of safety and privacy protection. These modules are patented under creative common license, and have been used by other organizations in various internet skills training. ICT Watch also organizes various offline activities, such as workshops and trainings, public events, roadshows to thousands of schools and campuses, and provides online consultation and campaign on “good Internet ethics” using all media available (e.g. website, Twitter, Facebook, and so on). At least tens of thousands people have received the training where some organized directly and the others in partnership with ICT Watch. Two to three short tips and tricks of “how to use the Internet safely and wisely” are posted daily and are responded to by more than 15,000 Facebook members and 950 Twitter followers.

Using refurbished donated computers, ICT Watch provides free community-based computer labs, helping local schools and community organizations to organize computer related trainings, from basic internet to blogging and creative media. This lab also promotes the use and development of open source software among trainees and schools. Donny links the schools with prominent universities (e.g. Gunadharma and Bina Nusantara University) to provide volunteer tutors whenever necessary. From both online and offline community groups, this training model is independently replicated—combining technical skill with the Internet Sehat campaign. From a code name used by techie activists, Internet Sehat has now become a brand label for various local softwares, books, and Internet connection packages offered by local businesses. Various community nodes are even referring to the Internet Sehat model as a solution in opposition to the government censorship in the new draft bill.

ICT Watch also aims to build capacity among Indonesians for participation as creators and distributors of online content. It sponsors the Internet Sehat Blog Award to appreciate those who positively use the internet for knowledge exchange. Two winners are chosen weekly from nine categories (i.e. education, family, student, travel and culinary, technology, citizen journalism, lifestyle, variety, and inspirational), and further included in monthly competition, best of the best quarterly winner, and annual super blog winner. A pesantren (religious school) in East Java replicated this award program among their santri (followers), and together with ICT Watch team they eventually proved to the kyai, or religious leaders in the community, that the Internet can be used for positive purposes.

Currently ICT Watch is developing a curriculum for COs on how to optimally use the Internet and social media to achieve social change. Topics in the curriculum include social media, blogging, content strategy and privacy security where the journalism content has been integrated in the sessions. To accelerate replication, Donny is preparing Paguyuban Relawan Internet Sehat Indonesia (PRASASTI), a volunteer association to mobilize local scale activities independently, but with content support from ICT Watch. Feeding to the need of the information, ICT Watch conducts research on income partly to sustain the organization. In addition, Donny always makes a deal with the business for the research results to be provided in Indonesian and posted for public use.

Donny and ICT Watch partnered with the Indonesia Internet Café Association that developed Domain Name System (DNS), which is essentially a voluntary filtering system. This allowed him to introduce Internet Sehat to leverage the social campaign of self-censorship at the individual, family, and education institution levels amongst the Internet cafes. Even though not fully in agreement with the filtering system being applied, Donny found it a good way for the internet providers to be held responsible. He believes this could be one of the alternative means to censorship. The Internet Sehat movement has inspired the Indonesia Internet Service Provider Association to partner with ICT Watch to market the Internet Sehat amongst the ISP members. Now, at least five of the largest ISPs, that reach out to millions of Internet users in Indonesia, have developed alternative internet especially for families.

In Donny’s opinion, the government should play an integral role in creating a supportive environment for healthy internet usage. He is therefore lobbying with the Ministries of Education, Women’s Empowerment and Communications and Information Technology to spread the Internet Sehat campaign. The draft bill has already been actively discussed by Internet users through social media. The success model of Internet Sehat has recently been shared amongst Asia ICT activists in a workshop held by OpenNet Initiative, and many have considered replicating the model in their countries.

Donny grew up in a family that believed in strict discipline and a simple way of living. He spent his childhood moving from one place to another, following his father who was an air force commander on duty. He learned about personal relationship building from his father, who took Donny with him on motorcycle rides, visiting and chatting with the soldiers despite differences in military ranks.

Always interested in technology and communications, Donny began his foray in to this world after his parents bought him a typewriter while a student in junior high and as a high school student he was exposed to computers and Internet where he understood the enormity of this considerably new medium.

However, wishing to become a pilot like his father, Donny took the entrance test for military school but failed the psychology test due to his non-conformist beliefs. Instead Donny enrolled in an undergraduate program majoring in informatics. He was more interested in the behavior of people in relation to technology rather than programming. Through his side job as reporter for detik.com, he tapped into a network of techies, ranging from Senior Fellow Onno Purbo’s community from common users to underground hackers. His curiosity toward the social networking through the Internet made him choose communications for his postgraduate study. Through the study he learned how social networks developed in Indonesia, how Internet users communicate and interact with each other and how bloggers set up their own groups.

Donny experienced first hand Internet addiction following the online chatting boom of the late 1990s. Spending hours online with only a couple hours of sleep every night and becoming increasingly withdrawn from real social life made him realize how people should be prepared for the sometimes negative repercussions of Internet usage in order to benefit from it. Together with IT specialist colleagues, Donny was active in the Sekolah 2000 program, introducing the Internet to the public, particularly schools. Learning from the findings and envisioning a positive, healthy future of Internet users in Indonesia, in 2002 with his other colleagues from different professions including a teacher, lawyer, and reporter, Donny co-founded ICT Watch.