By: Lisa Khairunisa) *
Nowadays almost everyone is very possible to connect to each other even without meeting each other, our parents must certainly be patient for weeks to get a reply from their pen pal. But now, in less than 1 second, we have all been able to send text, audio, photos and videos through social media applications.
The connectivity of social media is not limited, can be accessed by anyone and even free. But the impact of social media can also be a boomerang if it is not used properly, such as fraud, spreading hoaxes / hoaxes to provocative expressions that make social relations in the real world increasingly worse.
Excessive use of social media during the tumultuous election campaign in the past, is felt in our social life. Indirectly the society is divided dichotomically into “us” and them.
So if there is a party opposite it is certain he is our opponent, even though he could be our opponent is a close friend for a long time, but due to differences in choice, his kinship relationship was cracked and suddenly became a debate opponent coachman.
Everyone who is on the other side of the choice can become a stranger suddenly, to be suspected and shunned. Not a few also turned into fierce social media, by spreading a variety of news attacks on their opponents.
The universe of social media is also not immune from insults, verbal abuse, until expletives are provocative towards certain camps, the third principle of the Pancasila seems to be mere writing, warganet in various social media is increasingly polarized.
The state sniffs the danger and the audience is shocked when the government announces the limitation of some social media services for 4 days starting from 22 – 25 May 2019. Business people who need internet access are also disrupted, impacting their daily turnover.
All of that is the cause of a shift in function and taste, social media which was initially used as a means of interpersonal communication, has lately been increasingly used for other purposes, such as business, news and politics.
Then the more troublesome when many people use it to sow negative content such as fake news, provocation and terrorism. Since then the state has begun to make regulations to limit the use of social media, this is due to content that has the potential to disrupt security and order.
Social Media users who have a curiosity who are more likely to be easily trapped in the news on social media that has not been verified truthfully, the news is badly distributed without any guilt.
In social media, people must realize that cyberspace is a jungle of news and information. For this reason citizens (netizens) must be clever – clever in sorting out which information is substantial and which are just sensational.
In the year of politics, the production of provocative and hoax content is very difficult to suppress, many of which throw each other slander, reproach each other and vilify each other. Even though such actions are not the manners of the Indonesian people, they are also not Islamic values that we have.
Social media in Indonesia is also inseparable from ambiguity, on the one hand our digital literacy is still low, but on the other hand the government must also anticipate the behavior of citizens (netizens) who tend to violate information laws and electronic transactions, related to prohibiting the spread of violent content , incitement, utterances of hatred and SARA which are quite sensitive in Indonesia.
Restricting social media is a bitter pill that must be swallowed up, this is certainly enough to prevent citizens from using social media positively, such as uploading promotional photos or videos or conducting transactions with buyers.
But the bitter pill prescribed by the government also aims to nourish social media itself. Of course we and the community must maintain the function of social media in their khittah so that it can become a medium in bringing together the distant, not then separating.
Social media should be a bridge to strengthening connectivity, not necessarily destroying unity in Indonesia with provocative content, hoaxes, racial intolerance, and so on.
) * The author is a social media activist
