ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA – Indonesia is facing a hoax emergency situation ahead of the 2024 General Election.
The Minister of Communication and Information (Menkominfo) of the Republic of Indonesia, Budi Arie Setiadi, said that hoaxes containing the issue of the 2024 General Election had increased almost 10 times in the last year.
“Throughout 2022 there were only 10 General Election hoaxes, but from January 2023 to October 26 2023 there were 98 hoax issues. This means there has been an almost 10-fold increase in hoax issues compared to last year,” said Budi at the Media Center of the Ministry of Communication and Information, Jakarta, Friday (27/ 10/2023).
Budi said that the increase in hoaxes related to the General Election issue was becoming more significant as we entered July 2023 and would continue to increase until October 2023.
In fact, in the latest data from the Ministry of Communication and Information for 27 October 2023, an additional three new hoaxes were found, which shows that the spread of hoaxes related to the General Election is indeed getting hotter.
The spread of incorrect information regarding the five-yearly democratic party is mostly found through social media, especially on Facebook, which is the first social media created by the Meta Group.
“Our records show that the spread of hoaxes and disinformation related to the general election is mostly found on the Facebook platform managed by Meta. Currently we have proposed taking down 454 pieces of content to Meta,” said Budi.
However, hoaxes related to the general election were also found on other social media such as TikTok, YouTube, SnackVideo, Twitter and Instagram.
Budi gave an example of several hoax issues that have been handled by the Ministry of Communication and Information regarding the general election, including the disinformation “Prabowo Failed to Run for President after the Constitutional Court Approved the Age Limit”.
The ministry also discovered a hoax about “The General Election Commission Rejected the Registration of Ganjar Pranowo as a presidential candidate because he wanted to thwart Anies Baswedan”.
“Not only targeting presidential candidates and vice presidential candidates. The hoax and disinformation issues that we found also targeted the reputation of the general election commission and the administration of the general election to create distrust in the general election,” said Budi.
He said that the presence of hoaxes in Indonesia’s digital space had created information disruption, especially regarding the democratic party, which should be welcomed positively.
Therefore, Budi hopes that all levels of society can pay more attention before sharing information on social media or via instant messaging applications. In this way, all parties can be involved in preventing the circulation of hoaxes related to the 2024 general election which have the potential to reduce the quality of democracy and even cause polarization.
“Along with the narrative of the 2024 Peaceful general election, the Ministry of Communication and Information is pushing the ‘Beware of General Election Hoax’ campaign so that this is a reminder for the public to be more careful when receiving and reporting information related to the general election,” said Budi. (AT Network)
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