Fortnite back, Epic Games capitulates to Indonesia’s censorship laws

Fortnite is back in Indonesia after capitulating to the country’s censorship laws.

Fortnite received a ban in the country of Indonesia recently due to its parent company, Epic Games, refusing to register with the country’s Ministry of Communication and Information. A new law in the country was passed so that should the government deem it necessary, they could force a company to remove obscene or offensive content from their respective platforms.

What’s truly terrifying of the bill, named MR5, is that the government can demand sensitive information regarding its user base. So any player in Indonesia will have their information fed to the government upon a legal request.

So it’s odd that anyone would fold on such a demand. Yet, according to Fortnite News, Fortnite’s parent company Epic Games did just that. They’re the only ones really reporting that anything has changed on that front, and they didn’t name any sources, so if things change we’ll let you know.

The other companies that were banned included Steam, PayPal, Yahoo, and Origin, but as of right now, it looks like PayPal is the only company that has yet to submit to the government. The company may not have been in defiance of the request, but merely unable to do so. Epic Games had been on vacation for two weeks, coming back on August 9, which is the same day they apparently registered with the Indonesian government.

Indonesia is home to many human rights abuse claims

It’s one thing to register with a country that isn’t known for having awful human rights practices, but Indonesia is absolutely a country that will use things like gamer data to do all sorts of unlawful things.

Obviously, Epic Games isn’t looking to get political with a foreign power, and that’s their right, but they have to know that the government will use this law to target at-risk members of their community who they, as a government, have had a long history of violence against.

This is utterly disappointing that Epic Games would bend the knee to such a controlling regime.