Unspun

One of the most surrealistic experiences you can have in Indonesia is to hear the so-called experts rattle off complete nonsense.
The Press, which often than not does not know better, laps it up and regurgitates it whole.

One such example is the criticism by putative “telematics” expert Roy Suryo on the blog of Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono in today’s Jawa Post, as picked up in Priyadi’s Place.

Roy’s criticism, would you believe it, is that Juwono uses the .com domain

“Kalau belakangnya pakai com, itu perusahaan, ada kepentingan bisnis atau komersialnya. Karena itulah, kita tidak menggunakan ekstensi com untuk website presiden,” ujar anggota tim khusus pengelola website kepresidenan itu.

“If it ends with a .com it means that it is the domain of a business or a commercial enterprise. That is why we do not use the .com extension for the President’s website,” said the member of the special team managing the president’s website.

Thank you Roy. Now we know why the president’s image sucks – he’s surrounded by experts who know nothing but pontificating. It gets better:

Lebih lanjut, Roy meminta Menteri Komunikasi dan Informasi Sofyan Djalil untuk mengingatkan koleganya. “Itu tugas Pak Sofyan untuk segera mengingatkan beliau,” katanya.

Furthermore Roy urged the Minister of Communications and Information Sofyan Djalil to remind his colleague. “Its Pak Sofyan’s task to immediately remind him,” he said.

Now we get another valuable insight into what’s urgent among the president’s advisors. Roy then went on to enlighten the Jawa Post reporter that there’re all sorts of protocol with domain names for government (go.id) , education etc. Roy then zoomed in on Jowono’s blog again for another round of chastising:

“Itu kan tidak resmi, sepatutnya sebagai pejabat publik harus menampilkan citra yang baik, termasuk dalam berkomunikasi melalui internet,” ujarnya.

[Jowono's blog] is not official, when as a public official he should present himself well, including communicating through the internet.”

Duh!??!! Isn’t it one of the purposes of blogs anyway to be personal? How did Roy pass off for an expert for so long anyway.

Not to worry though. He did not fool all the people all the time. Priyadi was one of those who were not of all the people. “I feel I do not have to comment on that,” he said in his blog in Indonesian. “But it seems that the reporter that interviewed [Roy] forgot to ask the one in a billion question: why does the president’s website ends with the .info domain and not go.id?”

LOL. Don’tcha just love the blogosphere? Good one Priyadi! You’re one hell of an iconoclast! I also love yudhis‘comment to Priyadi’s post: “Om Roy, where’s your site?” Time to walk the talk Roy.