Jakarta police on manhunt after explicit porn played on billboard instead of ad

Jakarta police say 10 people questioned.after porn clip broadcast on billboard.

Jakarta police on hunt for billboard porn operator
Picture for representation Reuters

Jakarta police are on the lookout for the operator of a public billboard that broadcast an explicit pornographic video instead of advertising to passing traffic on 2 October.

According to the Associated Press, Jakarta police spokesman Awi Setiyono said that 10 people, including employees of the company operating the electronic billboard, were questioned but the police are yet to name the suspects.

The social media platforms were flooded with clips and pictures of the Japanese pornography movie that was played for a brief time at peak hour on Friday to the snarling traffic.

Police, with the assistance of nearby vendors, shut off the giant screen's power even as drivers and pedestrians were busy recording the steamy scene on their mobile phones.

The hashtag "videotron" was trending on twitter and users were busy guessing the culprit who broadcast porn on the billboard which is a spitting distance from the South Jakarta mayor's office.

The manager at PT Transito Adimanjati, which operates the electronic advertising screen, said that a hacker had seized control of the system.

Setiyono said the Jakarta police has been joined by a specialist cyber crime unit to investigate the matter and determine if the transmit was deliberate or hacked.

According to the officer, the cybercrime unit has seized several computers from the company and is closely analysing them. During the investigation, police reported that the video file, named "Watch Tokyo Hot", was streamed from a personal computer, he added.

Pornographic websites are blocked in Muslim-majority Indonesia. Even in movies, romantic scenes are heavily censored.

Muhammad Iriawan, Jakarta police chief, said that the miscreant could be charged under either the Electronic Transaction Law or the Pornography Law, both of which carries a prison sentence up to 12 years.

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