By: Dede Sulaiman )*
Anarchist demonstrations that have taken place in recent days have been triggered through social media. The community is expected not to be affected.
We know that the riots that occurred after the racist incident in East Java were caused by what, and we understand that STM students who took part in the demonstration were caused by what, both of these things could certainly be answered with 1 answer, namely an invitation on social media.
There is no riot without provocateurs, social media can be a place to provoke and incite tens to hundreds of people to heat up the situation with information circulating, the provocateurs will be satisfied if the masses taking to the streets also incite other participants, creating chaos.
Not only in Indonesia, some related world events are also influenced by information that develops on social media. Such as the riots in Egypt that led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, the changes that occurred in Tunisia, and the riots that occurred in Moldova. All of these countries experienced violence and anarchism, government instability even led to a prolonged crisis in all sectors of social life.
The violence triggered by incitement on social media is indeed quite disturbing in various countries, including Indonesia. Openness and freedom of access to public space, just backfire for the country itself.
In 2017 the Ministry of Communication and Informatics also briefly shut down the Telegram channel because the media was suspected to be a favorite medium used by the radical terrorism group (ISIS) in spreading doctrination, incitement to invitations to train to assemble bombs.
The Ministry of Communication and Information also said that the increase in the spread of negative content on social media was so massive that it included hate speech, slander and hoaxes.
The series of events that led to the riots would certainly be a warning to us together. Do not let IT become a plague for the continuity of our nation and state. The development of technology and information should have a positive impact on society and the emergence of social media in this millennial era should be able to facilitate human relations and strengthen relationships with others, not necessarily increasing hatred and enmity between people.
Do not let the emergence of social media will actually damage social harmony, especially to destroy the state order that has been built so far. Certainly it should be an afterthought for all the nation’s children, social media without the intelligence of its users will only become a “bad luck media” that can damage everything, both social media users, and the harmony of the nation’s society.
On the other hand, social media is also blamed as a problem that has caused an increase in mental health problems in adolescents lately.
The Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Wiranto said that various elements, ranging from students to students, to supporters were incited to confront the authorities.
He explained that the new wave was intended to be carried out by groups who wanted to create a chaotic atmosphere by involving a number of community groups.
Wiranto gave an example of student and student demonstrations at the DPR Building some time ago, which led to chaos because there was incitement from groups who wanted to create a riot atmosphere.
They provoke students to deal with security forces, with the hope that victims will emerge and blame the security forces. After the police arrested some students, one of the students arrested claimed to have taken part in the demonstration because of an invitation on social media.
Of course we must remain vigilant with various appeals on social media, where the last few days the condition of national politics continued to heat up after students staged rallies in a number of cities. Not only in Jakarta, demonstrations also took place in a number of big cities, such as Bogor, Bandung, Medan and others.
We must be able to distinguish, which invitations to demonstrations and invitations to provoke against the authorities, lest we get caught up in emotions in the frenetic demonstration, without knowing the aspirations voiced.
In Papua provocation of a teacher’s talk at school is also a bad luck, where when teaching the teacher asks students not to speak too loudly. But then the teacher’s words were twisted into words of apes. So it was circulating in the community that the teacher made fun of his students with the word ape. Incitement gave birth to a large riot and arson against several shops, PLN offices, the Regent’s Office and various other offices.
Incitement is something dangerous, plus if the provocation is echoed through social media, countless how many netizens have been exposed to such incitement.
)* The writer is a social media activist