Become a Smart Community with Digital Literacy, Resist Provocations About the Wabu Block Investment
By: Maria Tabuni *)
All people in Indonesia must become intelligent citizens and have high digital literacy skills in order to be able to ward off all attempts to spread provocation from irresponsible parties regarding investment in the Wabu Block, Intan Jaya Regency, Papua.
Of course, intelligence and digital literacy in this case are very important skills for people to have. Moreover, in this era of onslaught of various kinds of information and very significant technological advances. In this way, they have the ability to independently counter fake news and provocative narratives, including those related to the Wabu Block investment.
The reason is, if people do not have intelligence in digital literacy, then they will very easily be taken in or fall into believing whatever they get from the internet, even though it turns out that the narratives and issues on social media are not all trustworthy. There is a possibility that what they read was just the work of an irresponsible person who deliberately raised rumors, one of which was regarding the Wabu Block investment.
In realizing an intelligent society in the digital space, it is very important to understand the four pillars of digital literacy. These four pillars can become guidelines that can have a lot of positive impacts on society, especially when exploring the digital space or social media.
The four pillars include being competent, cultured, safe and ethical in digital media. Expert Staff to the Minister of Communication and Information for Social, Economic and Cultural Affairs, Wijaya Kusumawardhana, emphasized how important it is to increase digital literacy among the public when they are utilizing telecommunications infrastructure.
The development of technology, communication and information as well as the government’s aggressive efforts to continue strengthening telecommunications infrastructure must of course be balanced with the digital literacy of the people.
Therefore, in this case it is actually important for all parties to continue to encourage and emphasize the importance of understanding in cyberspace. Not only should it emerge from the community’s own awareness, be pursued by the central government, but also the local regional government (Pemda) has a role to play in overcoming it.
When all parties collaborate together to increase digital literacy, it will create a society that is increasingly critical when they surf in cyberspace. The characteristic of someone who is critical in using social media is that they are not too quick or rash in making decisions, but need a lot of consideration first. So, once they get information, people who think critically will look for more sources and want the information to be as objective as possible.
Meanwhile, the Coordinator of the Tular Nalar Mafindo Partnership Division, Erie Heriyah, reminded the entire community to continue to be alert to the production of fake news or hoaxes that are packaged in such a way that it is easy for people to believe them. The public must continue to be careful because the impact of someone who has been consumed by a hoax is that their reasoning ability will be impaired.
Talking about hoaxes and provocations, recently there have been actions on social media by irresponsible people spreading very provocative narratives regarding the Wabu Block investment in Papua.
One example is that there was a post on social media which alleged that it was as if the security forces had planned a crime to cause conflict between two tribes, namely the Moni and Mee with the aim of ensuring that exploitation in the Wabu Block would run optimally.
It is clear that such a narrative is completely untrue and is just an attempt at a provocative issue by irresponsible parties who are trying to create chaos in this country.
The reality on the ground actually shows that the security forces, whether from the Indonesian National Army (TNI) or the Indonesian National Police (Polri), continue to work together to create security, comfort and peace for all elements of indigenous Papuans (OAP).
Protection and efforts to continue to provide a sense of security for all the people of Bumi Cenderawasih from any disturbance or intimidation from other groups and commotion among residents by always implementing good social security and order enforcement by security forces.
Former Army Chief of Staff (Kasad) General TNI (Purn) Dudung Abdurachman revealed that the presence of security forces in the easternmost province of the country was to prepare all the means to help the community through territorial activities, considering that there are still many residents there who need a helping hand and help.
In fact, all personnel are required to use their conscience and clear thinking when on duty in Papua to ensure that the situation there continues to be under stable control.
In other words, there was absolutely no attempt by the security forces to deliberately plan for a conflict to occur between the two tribes there, as in the provocative narrative created by irresponsible people regarding the Wabu Block investment.
For this reason, it is very important that people can become intelligent citizens, especially when surfing social media and the digital world by implementing correct digital literacy so that they are able to ward off all forms and types of provocation attempts, including the Wabu Block investment issue that has recently been circulating.
*) Political Science Student at Krida Wacana Christian University
