by: Ardan Marua
Hoax, a word that means rough, but slick and easily spread. Apart from being often sensational, socio-cultural factors also contribute to the circulation of hoaxes, such as the lack of literacy culture, and especially the fondness for sharing stories or gossiping.
Based on UNESCO data, the interest of Indonesian people to consume literacy is very low. The research entitled World’s Most Literate Nations Ranking also shows the same thing, that Indonesia ranks second among 62 countries about literacy interests. That means our interest in stories is 60 times higher than our interest in consuming literacy, in this case reading books. Whereas in terms of infrastructure to support reading requests, Indonesia’s ranking is above European nations.
In the National Library Coordination Meeting held five months ago, 14-16 March 2019, at the Bidakara Hotel, Jakarta, Head of the National Library, Muhammad Syarif Bando in his remarks said that Indonesia currently has 164,610 libraries. That places Indonesia as the country with the most number of library infrastructures number two under India which has 323,605 libraries and above Russia with 113,440 libraries, and China tinsel in fourth with 105 831 libraries.
Worse, according to UNESCO, of the many hundred million people of Indonesia, only 0.001 percent of the public has a good interest in reading. That is, this nation is truly a gossiping nation. Worse yet, even though our interest in reading books is low, according to Wearesocial data, it is revealed that Indonesians are able to stare at the gadget screen for hours at a time of about 9 hours.
From this, the increased use of smartphones as a medium of conversation, joking, also influenced the circulation of hoaxes. Through social media, which can be accessed via smartphones, anyone can share stories, gossip, and upload photos or videos of exciting and entertaining experiences. The impact, the hoax participated in it.
Emarketer Digital Marketing Institute estimates that in 2018 until entering 2019 the number of active smartphone users in Indonesia could reach 100 million people. Unfortunately that estimate misses. Until now, according to the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) the number of users has reached 117, 17 million people. And based on Digital 2019’s annual report on online behavior compiled by Hootsuite and We Are Social, quoted from The Guardian, Indonesia ranks fifth in terms of the most and longest internet users in the world.
Smartphone has become one of the most widely used media to access the internet, especially social media. These affairs are the strongest Indonesian social media for hours, even among the most talkative on social media. Jakarta is one of the most fastidious cities in cyberspace because all day long, Twitter activities from me, Twitter, which is domiciled in the capital city of Indonesia, is the most densely populated compared to Tokyo and New York. This report is based on the research of Semiocast, an independent institution in Paris, France.
So you can imagine, those who are not literate in reading, but like to stare at the gadget screen for hours and chatty on social media too. So don’t be surprised that Indonesia is a soft consumer for provocative information, hoaxes, and slander. Once you get information that is considered interesting, it can horrendous cyberspace, immediately like and share. Even though the information is not necessarily true, and it could only be meant to provoke social media users and defend national cohesion. If so, the people are divided, social distrust, what is the impact on our economic growth?
Cybercrime and Its Impact on Our Economy
Currently we are entering a new market arena, a virtual space market. Cyber crimes such as spreading false news, hacking, pishing, carding, and all kinds of things, which have the character of growing public distrust and harming individual and state finances are clearly very dangerous and pose a threat to the economy, especially the digital economy.
Next year, 2020, the government targets the Indonesian digital economy to reach US $ 130 billion or equivalent to Rp 1,750 Trillion. This was stated by the Director General (Director General) of the Post and Information Provider (PPI) Ministry of Communication and Information, Ahmad R. Ramli. “The problem right now is that cybercrime is extraordinary. We can only achieve the target of the digital economy if all transactions are certain to be safe. Transactions will be safe if there is no anonimaus,” he said.
Based on data from McAfee’s cyber security research with Central for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) announced last year, annual losses from cybercrime crimes globally have reached US $ 600 billion or equivalent to Rp 8,160 trillion (assuming US $ 1 = Rp 13,600) in 2017, which was driven by increased sophistication of hackers, fake news, and more crimes in online stores. In this study it was also stated that intellectual property theft reached a quarter of annual losses from cyber crime.
On the basis of it all, without careful social media, we can be sure, our economy will inevitably fall down. If our economy falls, who loses? The losers are not people in other countries but us, we are all Indonesian people with all their blood. If you don’t want this to happen, be careful about social media.
In order for our country to progress, we just need to be careful and hold back. The conditions are that, no more. Because lies that are repeated and spread systematically, for me, will never be the truth. But it has the potential to make us deceived and powerless to explore the real truth, and social cohesion and mutual trust are eroded.
Therefore, I think, independence from the conscience is a necessity for each of us to go to a glorious and sovereign Indonesia for all the potential it has.
