The public has a vital role to play in preventing the circulation of hoaxes that could disrupt the smooth running of the 2024 Election. Hoaxes and propaganda are a critical point for elections, therefore they must be eradicated now.
As is known, elections will be held in early 2024 and will soon enter the campaign period. When there is a campaign, each party or candidate team will promote their various ideas. However, there is also a black campaign model by vilifying other candidates or spreading hoaxes about them. The goal is that these candidates do not get votes and automatically lose the election.
Hoaxes are fake news and are deliberately created and spread so that people are wrong in voting during elections. The number of hoaxes circulating on various social media is very troubling, because it triggers many people to argue and blame each other. Before the campaign period, social media was already heating up because of hoaxes.
The chairman of the Bawaslu (Election Supervisory Body) Rahmat Bagja stated that fake news or hoaxes are a critical point in general elections (elections) which are inevitable in the current digitalization era. The main impact of hoaxes is the emergence of polarization in society. Polarization is a split into several camps and raises hostility.
Bagja added, if hoaxes cannot be handled, it can reduce the credibility and integrity of the election administration. This will result in a decrease in the quality of elections and damage the rationality of voters. In addition, hoaxes can lead to social conflict, hate speech, and propaganda, as well as growing national disintegration.
Based on data from the Ministry of Communication and Informatics (Kemenkominfo), there were 9,814 hoax findings across all categories from August 2018 to April 2022. Meanwhile, 922 hoax issues were found in the 2019 election series. As for the 2020 Pilkada, 65 hoax issues were found.
Don’t let the mistakes in the 2019 election happen again because of the ferocity of hoaxes on social media. Hoaxes are like monsters that have the potential to disrupt elections and make social media hot, because the opposing sides of the legislative/presidential candidate are attacking each other. They also made the mistake of not checking whether the news they read was hoax or valid.
Hoaxes are a critical point for elections because they can cause chaos in society, and even trigger hostilities for years. The proof is that after the 2019 election was over, there were people who called other parties inappropriate names. All this because of hoaxes on social media.
One way to deal with hoaxes is to increase digital literacy. The first step is to diligently read. Often Indonesian netizens are lazy to read and even only read the news headlines, without paying close attention to the contents. Even though now there is a lot of click-bait news with different contents and titles, which are deliberately made up by people who cause hoaxes.
Digital literacy training must be carried out in various regions in Indonesia for the success of the 2024 Election. If people are digitally competent, they will not be easily trapped by hoaxes. They already understand what are the characteristics of hoax news or photos, and know how to check whether it is fake or valid.
Meanwhile, Acting Mayor of Yogyakarta Sumadi asked all residents of the City of Yogyakarta to cooperate in creating a peaceful 2024 Election. He hopes that the 2024 election will not be colored by religious politics, SARA and money politics. The government is trying to create safe and comfortable conditions when holding the 2023-2024 elections. Democratic parties will avoid money politics, hoax information, and voter participation as desired.
In a sense, ahead of the general election, people must create peace by avoiding hoaxes. The reason is because the influence of hoaxes is very large and can mislead people’s minds, especially those who are still lay people. If there is an election hoax, it will be very detrimental and make the central government and regional governments dizzy, because people will accuse and fight with each other.
If hoaxes are not prevented, it will be very dangerous because it can trigger abstentions (white groups) and the election is threatened with failure. Therefore, hoaxes must be eradicated.
The public must realize that one way to fight hoaxes is to report social media accounts that spread fake news/images about the 2024 elections. Apart from being wise in using social media, they must also be able to distinguish between true news and hoaxes.
Then, the next way to counter hoaxes is to report them to the cyber police. At present the National Police already has a cyber police unit whose job is to monitor the actions of naughty netizens who like to spread hoaxes and terror on the internet. If there are accounts of individuals who like to spread hoaxes, the cyber police will be very happy when netizens report them.
Hoaxes are a critical point in elections. Therefore, if you want the 2024 Election to run successfully, one way is to eradicate hoaxes. The public needs to be given internet literacy so that they can find hoax news, then report it to the cyber police.
