By: Putu Prawira ) *
Hoaxes and infodemics surrounding the handling of Covid-19 are threats that cannot be underestimated because they can hinder the handling of the outbreak . The public is also asked to be aware of hoaxes and disinformation by optimizing public literacy.
On social media such as Facebook, it seems that news has circulated about a vaccine trial from China, where the post contains a narrative that Indonesia is only a guinea pig for the Covid-19 vaccine imported from China.
The Ministry of Communication and Informatics team has also traced the news, apparently the upload in that status is wrong. Because it turns out that there are several other countries that vaccinate with the Sinovac vaccine from China, such as Bangladesh, Turkey and Brazil.
In addition, the claim that China does not test for vaccines in its own country is false. Passal in the early and second phases of clinical trials conducted in China and using volunteers there.
Disinformation itself has meaning, namely information that is deliberately designed to cause harm.
From the news related to vaccine disinformation that has been written above, of course it has the aim of harming the Indonesian people, aka the news is aimed at spreading viruses of public doubts about the existence of a vaccination program in Indonesia. In fact, vaccination is one of the efforts for Indonesia to achieve herd immunity.
Disinformation will be even more dangerous if the recipient of the wrong information deliberately spreads it on various social media accounts, such as Facebook or WhatsApp groups.
Of course we often get broadcasts about news that are not clear sources, usually the news will be spread in conversation groups. So there is a need for digital literacy to ward off hoaxes, including disinformation about any news we receive.
We also cannot deny that technology is increasingly developing and dominating the world for various sectors, including business. So that digital literacy is indispensable for the current era because device devices have been widely used in almost all circles.
The term Literacy certainly refers to knowledge and skills in certain fields. So, the definition of digital literacy is a person’s ability and insight in the aspects of using digital technology, communication tools, creating and evaluating information in a healthy and careful manner and obeying the laws of life.
So that digital literacy has a goal so that people can use technology optimally but take full responsibility for what they do.
The country of Indonesia with a large population is certainly faced with the challenge of mastering digital skills as one of the requirements for life skills in the 21st century through integrated education throughout society.
One of the main abilities in digital literacy is the power of thought in analyzing and assessing content. This aspect is of course indispensable during a pandemic, where hoaxes about health are one of the most complicated problems, where hoaxes can appear and spread so quickly.
Previously, there was also a #stopdikamu campaign, this campaign was a movement not to spread news with unclear sources and tended to be provocative. The simple movement by controlling our thumbs is of course one of the moves that can be used in order to ward off hoaxes.
The beginning of 2021 is a moment when the vaccination program by the government is attacked by a lot of hoax news.
Disinformation about vaccines certainly adds to public unrest, in addition to hoaxes related to making Indonesia a vaccine guinea pig, there is also a hoax saying that the Sinovac vaccine contains vero cells, even though the news is not true.
In addition, there is also news that does not make sense, such as the presence of borax and formalin in the vaccine ingredients. Whereas in the production process, the Sinovac vaccine uses an inactivated method to kill the virus so that the vaccine does not contain live or attenuated viruses.
Understanding related to digital literacy is an important thing to master, especially now that we live in an information age that chases readers, not readers who are looking for and digging up information. Concretely, if there is news that seems provocative, the simple step we can take is to be skeptical, ignore it and don’t spread it.
) * The author is warganet stay Tangerang