By: Rifky Kurniawan *
Hoax or false news is a disease that is ready to undermine our nation, if left unchanged NKRI will be destroyed by itself. There are many hoaxes that are spread in society which is ironically easily accepted and regarded as the truth, ironically actually, in an older age, Indonesia is still convoluted on the issue of hoaxes, which are also actually loaded with political interests. Why did I say that? if you pay attention to the hoax that blows harder in the elections, both 2014 and 2019, the hoax that President Jokowi is a descendant of the PKI, Chinese accomplices and oblivious to the hoax Ratna Sarumpaet who deceived the public.
Based on a survey of the Indonesian Telematics Society (Mastel) in 2017, the spread of hoaxes most often occurs on social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, then through chat and websites. The massive Hoax spread turns out to have a negative impact on public trust in the media, the public considers the media to be no longer neutral in preaching something and tends to take sides and the media are considered to often exaggerate a message through the title but not in accordance with its contents or what we are familiar with as the clickbait.
So what actually makes a hoax flourish in Indonesia? According to a study from the Most Littered Nation in the World conducted by Central Connecticut State University in 2016 ranked Indonesia in 60th out of 61 countries if sorted from reading interest, inversely proportional to reading interest, gadget growth in Indonesia is getting out of control even reaching half of the Indonesian population as a whole, of course you can imagine what would happen if someone with low reading interest but equipped with gadgets, hoax news would be swallowed raw and would be directly distributed to his friends on social media and would be even worse if his friends were have a low interest in reading but a high desire to share. double kill
It doesn’t feel like we are getting closer to the 74th Indonesian Independence Day, the question now is what have we given this country? and is Indonesia currently doing well? The election is over and Indonesia’s leaders for the next five years have been democratically elected, but why are the “former” election conflicts still thick in their scent? is not it time for us as the people of Indonesia to come back together, isn’t there no longer the terms 01 and 02 or the term midwife and shucks, forget the election of friends, the election is actually opium for people who are hungry for power, after all there will be a five-year election later, and the people who play are just the same, so can we hold aside the desire for competition, desire for interest, desire for class, desire to be candidates at least for the next election? Are we not tired of fighting each other, conflicting each other only for the sake of a number of people, let our friends knit back our unity, do not let our dislike of the party, president, and Parliament make us escape to care for our Homeland.
Of course it does not have to be a member of Parliament or politicians to be able to contribute to this country, all people have their respective roles and have their own ways to care for the motherland, the most important thing now is how to cure this country from hoaxes, actually to eradicate this disease is simple that is by way of Filtering before Sharing, meaning that whatever information we get, we must check the truth first before being distributed to others, so that false information simply stops with us, not spread to others. Don’t let the hoax eat too long in Indonesia, because this country is sick enough to add new diseases.
*) Social Observer