JAKARTA. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo highlighted the importance of free speech in his visit to Indonesia on Thursday, as his company refused to block the politically sensitive hashtag of #ShameOnYouSBY directed at former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which popped up in the microblogging site last year.

"We don’t add or remove hashtags. That [demand to erase hashtags by governments] comes up once in a while, we get messages about that, but that’s not something we do," Costolo said when asked by The Jakarta Post on the issue.

"Freedom of speech has been one of the greatest assets and benefits of Twitter. We have a core value inside our company to defend and respect the users’ voice," he stated.

Twitter is popular among Indonesians seeking to vent their criticism of government officials, this year the site was abuzz with a similar #ShameOnYouJokowi criticism that was aimed at President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.

The SBY hashtag pattern became popular in September last year with #ShameOnYouSBY topping Twitter's trending topics worldwide, following Indonesians' disappointment with then president Yudyonono's move to allow his Democratic Party lawmakers to walk out of a crucial vote to scrap the direct election of local leaders.

However, the hashtag disappeared only around two days after it had peaked on Twitter’s worldwide trending topic, fueling speculation that Twitter imposed its content-withholding policy at the request of the Indonesian government.

On Thursday, Costolo met with Vice President Jusuf Kalla to discuss the company’s business expansion in Indonesia, which boasts more than 30 million Twitter users, and the CEO identified the country as important to Twitter's business growth.

"There’s absolutely a plan to expand our business in Indonesia with mobile operator partners, entertainment partners and with the government," Costolo said after the meeting. "I think this is the right time for Twitter to open an office here in Jakarta." (Satria Sambijantoro)

Editor: Hendra Gunawan