I'm Well! Crowded Public Protest, Kominfo Finally Temporarily Opens PayPal Service

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JAKARTA - The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has temporarily opened the PayPal service so that people can transfer their funds from the platform.

"As of this morning, we opened PayPal so that people can migrate," said the Director General of Informatics Applications, Kominfo, Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan in a virtual press conference, Antara, Sunday, July 31.

The Ministry of Communication and Informatics blocked the PayPal service on Saturday as a consequence of the platform not registering as an electronic system operator (PSE) in Indonesia. Blocking PayPal, one of the services blocked by the government, received protests from the public. They express it through social media.

PayPal is a service to send funds from abroad, this platform is widely used by those who work with foreign companies, freelancers or content creators. Through social media, a number of users claimed to be annoyed and confused because they still had some funds in PayPal, however, they could not be disbursed because the platform was blocked.

According to Semuel, PayPal was temporarily opened at 8.00 this morning, after seeing the condition of the community and getting input. This temporary opening is carried out for five working days, namely August 5 at 23:59.

Semuel asked the public to make the best use of the five days, whether to transfer their funds from PayPal to another platform or ask those they work with to send funds to services other than PayPal.

PayPal, according to Semuel, has not yet communicated with the Ministry of Communication and Information regarding the registration of the electronic system operator.

If by the time limit specified PayPal still has not registered, the service must be blocked again.

The Ministry of Communication and Informatics has blocked a number of sites and services since Saturday (29/7) because they did not register as PSE operating in Indonesia. The blocked services include Yahoo Search, online games Steam, Dota 2, Counter-Strike Global Offensive and digital distribution platform Origin.