By : Samuel Christian Galal )*
The Indonesian government continues to encourage the active role and participation of the community to remain and continue to be wise in making all decisions and responding to anything in the digital space in order to continue to maintain national peace, especially ahead of the 2024 elections.
Minister of Communication and Information of the Republic of Indonesia (Menkominfo RI) Budi Arie Setiadi continues to fully encourage all stages of the process of implementing the democratic party and political contestation in the upcoming General Election (Pemilu) in 2024 to take place peacefully. This peace must continue to be maintained both in the digital space and in person.
Therefore, to be able to intensify this, the Government then immediately carried out an agenda to campaign or carry out public communication with the title ‘Peaceful Election 2024’, which seeks to further encourage the entire community so that they can choose more wisely while still continue to maintain peace in this nation.
The message that the government continues to promote is a form of concrete, joint effort or effort to be able to encourage all elements of the nation to be able to make their choices well without the basic foundation of identity politics or the use of fake news and hoaxes at all.
It cannot be denied that the potential for problems in the implementation of the 2024 General Election itself continues even now. Some things that pose a very real threat are the possibility of horizontal friction occurring in society, triggering unstable conditions.
Apart from that, to be able to realize the democratic party so that it can run smoothly and peacefully, it is very important to increase the active participation of the role played by the community itself, and all citizens are expected to continue to prevent divisions and the spread of false information.
The reason is, with the increasingly massive use of digital space which can be accessed by the entire community, even from various circles and also the rapid spread of information flow, of course the circulation of various kinds of political narratives on social media has the potential to cause information chaos in the form of misinformation, disinformation and even malinformation. .
There are at least 3 (three) main problems and major problems that must continue to be of concern to various parties during the implementation of the General Election process, namely the first is the spread of hoaxes, then the spread of slander and then finally the spread of hate speech. which has great potential to give rise to various kinds of social insecurity.
Indonesia is a very large country and also has people with different backgrounds, so this extraordinary level of diversity is clearly a challenge in itself. Therefore, it is important for this nation to continue to reflect on how elections were carried out in various other countries, where the implementation was disrupted due to the spread of disinformation in society.
It is very clear because if, for example, the spread of disinformation continues to occur widely among the public, then the context of the General Election will result in the defeat of figures or figures who are actually very qualified in terms of their track record, experience and knowledge. This figure will seem to be considered unfit to be elected just because he lost to another candidate who actually won in terms of popularity and was just simply popular among the public.
Apart from that, if disinformation continues to spread to society, there will be a significant decline in trust in the functioning of democratic principles and government institutions. Moreover, social and political instability will clearly occur because society is very limited in being able to access factual information, so that the threat of polarization among citizens will continue for a long time.
Therefore, it is very important for all parties to work together and increase their respective synergies to continue to narrate the 2024 Peaceful Election. Collaboration also needs to be carried out by the Government itself, in this case through the Ministry of Communication and Information and also the TNI and Polri security forces in implementing the program literacy is encouraged among the public, focusing on ethics in using social media during election times like now.
In addition, the neutrality of all ASN and law enforcement officers is a very important key to continuing to maintain a healthy digital space in society. The wise attitude of the public in determining their choices is also very important, including what actions should be good to take and how to respond when using social media. Maintaining national peace is the duty of all parties to ensure that the elections run peacefully.
)* The author is at the Gala Indomedia Institute
