JAKARTA (THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The Indonesian government announced a plan on Wednesday (Feb 17) to block microblogging and social networking website Tumblr in the country because of explicit content such as pornography as well as material referencing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) relationships.

Its Communications and Information Ministry's e-business director Azhar Hasyim said his office had sent a statement to Tumblr, saying the website would be blocked in Indonesia until it agreed to remove explicit content.

The move was in accordance with the 2008 Pornography Law, he added.

"If Tumblr then agrees to block pornography and LGBT content from being accessed in Indonesia, we will open (access to) the website again," Mr Azhar told The Jakarta Post.

The decision to block the site was made during a meeting on Tuesday, where a panel overseeing negative Internet content, focusing on pornography, found that 477 sites, including Tumblr, contained pornographic videos featuring heterosexual relationships as well as LGBT couples, he said.

Based in New York City, Tumblr was founded by Mr David Karp in 2007 before being bought by Yahoo for US$1.1 billion (S$1.54 billion) in 2013. The site is known for drawing a young hipster audience with its diverse and unique content, which is considered quite different from other blogging sites.

Tumblr has yet to make any official statement regarding the issue.