Bali Plans To Switch Off Internet Services For 24 Hours For New Year 'Quiet Reflection' (theguardian.com)

Internet service providers in Bali will be switching off mobile services this weekend for 24 hours to mark the Indonesian island's annual day of silence. "Nyepi, or New Year according to the ancient Balinese calendar, is a sacred day of reflection on the Hindu-majority island," reports The Guardian. "Even the international airport shuts down." From the report: This year authorities have called on telecommunications companies to unplug -- a request Bali says firms have promised to honor. "It was agreed that internet on mobile phones will be cut. All operators have agreed," Nyoman Sujaya, from the Bali communications ministry, told tirto.id. The plan, based on an appeal put forward by Balinese civil and religious groups, was announced following a meeting at the ministry in Jakarta. This is the first time internet services will be shut down in Bali for Nyepi, after the same request was denied last year. However, wifi connection will still be available at hotels and for strategic services such as security, aviation, hospitals and disaster agencies. Phone and SMS services will be operational, but the Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association is reviewing whether wifi at private residences will be temporarily cut.

Comments

Gotta appease the small-brained...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to appease the small-minded people who ask for things like this. Having no idea that other people without their knowledge perhaps set up life critical services, these fools block the internet.

Of course anyone else trying to get these people to honor other events like Satans birthday likely fail. It's almost as if the small brain people are really our masters. They really do have the best of both worlds... anyone dumber than them needs help, anyone smarter than them needs to slow down and be less dangerous. Anything that scares them will be banned, anything they don't understand will be taken away, and they will never allow someone more skilled or efficient to exist around them without constant ridicule. They demand the right to exist, demand the tax money from the smarter people, demand to be in the way, and demand the right to ban anything they disagree with.

I'm glad an event like this happens, so I can show the people in my country what would happen if we let the small brain people over here take control. They demand shit like this and actually think they're in the right to enforce it upon others.

Theocracy

[rsilvergun]

I'm sure the government asked a business to shut down service and everybody there was just like "Hey, that's a great idea".

Seriously, does anyone else find this disturbing as hell? If you want to shut off your internet for a day go right ahead. Unplug your router. But having the government force the issue is frightening. Especially with the religious overtones. It doesn't help that I've been reading stories of Hindi nationalists out of India, but to be fair I've got no idea if that sort of nationalism exists in Indonesia.