By: Agustinus Prima
As a good citizen, people should prioritize the conduciveness of the community, not even spreading hoaxes about the Corona Virus. Thus, the government’s efforts to fight hoaxes must be supported and assisted.
The development of hoax news in Indonesia itself is indeed quite swift. News is not true alias this hoax is used as material exclamation. It was mentioned in a number of reports that this Indonesian was very keen to spread hoax news. The reason is that Indonesians are lazy to read. So immediately share all kinds of news without wanting to check the truth first.
In fact, it refers to World’s Most Literate Nation, which was published in the middle of last year. Of the total 61 countries included in the study, Indonesia indeed ranks 60th in reading public interest. Wow! It’s sad.
Chances are, being the first person to spread the word will feel more powerful, proud. But, unfortunately, not accompanied by accurate information. Happens to make the universe even worse. Including issues that were brought up regarding Corona Virus or Covid-19. There are at least 19 suspected Corona virus hoaxes. And the government appealed to the public to just follow the official info.
Previously, the Government had detected dozens of hoaxes about the Corona virus. Based on data from the Ministry of Communication and Information (Kemenkominfo), around 19 hoaxes were recorded as circulating in the archipelago.
Hoaxes include, among others, First, the presence of dates containing the Corona virus originating from Bats. Second, the presence of dangerous viruses in Sardjito General Hospital; Corona virus is suspected to have spread and entered Indonesia in BRI Building 2. There is also a hoax that mentions about 1 patient at RSPI Sulianti Saroso, Jakarta, who is being isolated because of corona, and people infected with the corona virus at Wahidin Hospital in Makassar.
Minister of Communication and Information Technology Jhonny G. Plate also urged the public to be smart in using social media when responding to the Corona virus. He admitted that the news about the Corona hoax was considered to spread faster than the epidemic itself. Therefore, he asked the public not to carelessly share the virus from Wuhan City, the country of bamboo curtains.
Johnny also asked the entire community not to associate the corona problem with other issues that have a wide and negative impact on the country, both in the economic sector and other sectors.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Communication and Information hopes that the public will be more referring to official institutions and information submitted by the government officialls in the context of preventing and handling this virus. The reason is, if the wrong handling, the impact will be very broad. He emphasized that this was purely a health problem. So for all must follow the main reference.
Responding to news like this is indeed not easy. Indonesia as the number 5 highest smartphone user in the world, in fact, poor insight because of their lack of interest in reading. They seem to prefer to be able to thumb or love on their social media networks rather than having to check the truth first.
It may seem trivial, huh. But actually it has a very significant impact. The government has been desperately trying various anticipatory steps. Socializing explicitly both offline and online, but the public has more confidence in the outstanding hoaxes. In the end they are poor information. Sadly, they will be in a circle of panic without knowing the real news.
Fighting the issue of hoaxes is indeed not alone. Collaboration between the government, the community, the state apparatus starting from the top line to the bottom must be carried out. Not only presents news that is educational but also true without having to frighten.
It’s true, Corona Virus can kill anyone. But the dissemination of information regarding this matter must be justified. Getol spread hoax on social media so that it can be famous and can praise. But it was his turn to be arrested for misuse of technology, crying for help, thinking! thinking!
Moreover, the Government has taken a number of anticipatory steps to deal with this outbreak. Starting from travel tires to supervision in public facilities. The main principle of the spread of this virus is to attack immunity. So if the immune and good health, any virus will not penetrate, including Corona Virus. Let’s support the government in creating a conducive community. So stop over-responding to existing problems, or make meme useless. Health problems are not funny!
