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Communications minister 'accidentally' follows Twitter porn account
Jakarta Globe - March 18, 2014
Tifatul – via his Twitter account @tifsembiring – began following @ToketQueen on Monday, sending the Indonesian Twittersphere into hysterics as users sought to point out that the content offered up by the account did not fit with the high principles espoused by Tifatul's Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) or Indonesian law, which includes an outright ban on pornography.
@HariSulistyo tweeted on Tuesday, "... Mr. Minister @tifsembiring, thank you. because of you, we now know @ToketQueen. Long live PSK [the Indonesian acronym for commercial sex workers]; oops, PKS.. !!"
@andi_giling wrote, "I'm sure @tifsembiring will say humans make mistakes... but why so many mistakes:p #PKS"
Tifatul on Tuesday clarified the issue, saying he had made the error after one of his followers had sent him a link to the offending account, asking that it be blocked.
"Someone reported a pornographic twitter account, asking [me] to block it," Tifatul said. "I accidentally pressed the 'follow' button. That often happens with touch-screen gadgets. The 'follow' button is on the lower left. So, when it's touched, we become a follower."
Tifatul denied perusing the content of the adult Twitter account. "Following someone doesn't necessarily mean we open and check their account. [And], not following a person doesn't mean they never check the person's account...:D"
The minister said he would be more careful next time and reminded his followers to also keep an eye out for pornography, adding that anyone could complain about "negative content" on the internet via aduankonten@mail.kominfo.go.id.
Tifatul, a former chairman of the PKS, joined Twitter in October 2009 after he was installed as Indonesia's communications minister. He has gained almost 730,000 followers since.
Twitter analytical website http://twtrland.com said he was a "super active" user, tweeting an average of 14.5 tweets per day. Tifatul, sometimes called "Tiffy" by his critics, is also considered among the most popular Twitter users, with every 100 tweets of his being retweeted 4,570 times on average.
Tifatul is a frequent target of criticism on Twitter, no more so than when he shook hands with US First Lady Michelle Obama during President Barack Obama's visit to Indonesia in 2010. Some supporters of the PKS criticized him, as some conservative Muslims consider shaking hands with members of the opposite sex to be haram, or forbidden.
Tifatul defended himself by saying he had been caught off guard by FLOTUS.
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