It is very important for all elements of society to continue to actively participate in preventing the spread of hoax information, especially ahead of the upcoming 2024 General Election democratic party so that this nation can be free from the politicization of SARA and always maintain a conducive democratic climate.
In order to improve and maintain the conduciveness of the democratic climate ahead of the democratic general elections (Elections) in 2024, it is indeed important to intensify media literacy to counteract the spread of information or spreading hoaxes to the public.
Moreover, if the target audience is first time voters, teenagers and students. It is hoped that with an increase in political literacy skills as well as digital literacy , then of course the public will be much better off when dealing with exposure to issues regarding elections which could threaten stability in the future.
In this regard, the Head of the IKP and Public Relations Division of the East Kalimantan Diskominfo, Irene Yurianti, revealed that young people can actually have the ability to be literate in the digital world, so they will automatically be able to determine attitudes without the need to be contaminated with false information that is widely spread around the world. Internet.
Irene also added that with the passage of time, not only as readers or audiences, people often create social media content so they can be more careful and filter information before creating content.
This is because it is impossible for the public to go against the flow of developments in the world of information and digitalization as it is today. So the best thing that can be done is not to fight it, but to be able to adapt and learn how to live in that era.
When the flow of information is indeed very fast and absolutely unstoppable because everyone can freely become a producer of that information, then what must be wise in determining attitudes is the community that consumes this information itself, especially when dealing with information on the eve of elections and regarding elections. 2024 coming.
Meanwhile, the East Java Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) invites the general public to actively participate in supervising elections, especially preventing the spread of hoaxes.
East Java Bawaslu commissioner Eka Rahmawati revealed that to ward off hoaxes, Bawaslu has an application called Finger Watching Elections, which has been followed by 25,000 applicants. According to him , this application is indeed widely opened. This is important to be massive to fill the digital space. Moreover, hoaxes or disinformation often take advantage of social media.
Efforts to be able to provide socialization about the dangers of hoaxes on social media and digital space are indeed very important, because it turns out that so far digital space is still very rare and minimal to reach regarding the context of election supervision to be able to prevent disinformation from spreading , including hoaxes and politicization SARA in virtual space.
Therefore, various steps were taken by Bawaslu, including launching a digital application, carrying out an Alert Call and launching the Voting Rights Monitoring Post and the Declaration of Peaceful Elections. All of these things are a strong commitment that Bawaslu has to the public that the Election Supervisory Body is indeed very ready to carry out its supervisory duties.
East Java Bawaslu Chairperson A. Warits said that ensuring that the election takes place according to the provisions is a shared responsibility. Including in terms of supervision, actually it is not only the task of Bawaslu. But it requires the attention of all parties. In carrying out monitoring efforts, of course, the Bawaslu will not be able to do it alone and it will also require the wider community.
In the same vein, the Minister of Communication and Informatics, Johnny G. Plate also admitted that his staff’s duties would be far more optimal if the whole community was assisted in cleaning up the digital space . Because if people can use digital space more usefully and don’t pollute it, then there will be no more post truth, hoaxes, misinformation, hate speech and so on regarding elections.
Johnny hopes that digital space will not be used to bully potential leaders. Instead, digital space should be used to test programs and the vision and mission of prospective leaders.
In fact, with the existence of digital space, instead of being used to berate and bully each other, actually digital space itself will be far more useful if it can be used to test various programs, visions and missions offered by prospective leaders who are campaigning in the upcoming 2024 election.
As the 2024 election approaches , it cannot be denied that hoax information is a very serious challenge for the public. Especially with the existence of a digital space that is very free and also a very heavy flow of information like today. Therefore, the activeness of all elements of society itself is very necessary so that the flow of hoax information can be stopped and create a conducive democratic climate.
)* The author is a contributor to Persada Institute