Various strategies to be able to counter the increasing spread of disinformation related to the 2024 Election continue to be carried out by election organizers and security forces. The synergy carried out for the sake of securing cyberspace in order to create a healthy democratic climate for the people of Indonesia.
In today’s social life, it is undeniable that social media is no longer an alternative media, but rather social media itself is the main media in supporting all activities of daily life in society.
Therefore, because the role of social media in this era and era of society is very important and has even become the mainstream media, all parties should also develop awareness together in playing social media.
How could it not be, because if social media users like in Indonesia, whose numbers are also very large, don’t have high awareness at all, then they will be very vulnerable to exposure to fake news or hoaxes that freely circulate on the internet.
So far, the increase in hoax news circulating in the community itself has continued to increase in numbers. The data shows that around 57% (percent) of the entire Indonesian population there has been a significant increase in hoaxes from social media users.
Moreover, when we enter a political year like now, where the general election contestation (Election) will soon be held in 2024, there are indeed various parties who actually take advantage of the spread of disinformation to gain political advantage on their part.
For this reason, the Chairman of the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu), Rahmat Bagja continues to encourage the formation of a task force to supervise content on social media (medsos).
For information, the task force formed by the Bawaslu consists of several joint institutions, including the Bawaslu itself, then there is the General Elections Commission (KPU), the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) and also the Press Council. According to Bagja, all the combined institutions in the task force have the goal of minimizing the spread and sources of fake news or hoaxes in society.
However, it does not only function to minimize the spread of disinformation, but the task force formed by the Indonesian Bawaslu also aims to be able to tackle the spread of hate speech and also the practice of politicization by using the issues of ethnicity, religion, race and intergroup (SARA), which all of them often appear on social media, especially if they have entered the process of running the election stages as they are now.
So, with the task force formed by the RI Bawaslu, it is hoped that socialization and education in the community will be much more increased so that the community can independently distinguish which content or news contains hoaxes and which ones are true.
Meanwhile, KPU RI Chairman Hasyim Asy’ari conveyed the strategy implemented by the KPU RI in counteracting electoral disinformation. One of the things the KPU RI has done is to display a fact check on electoral hoaxes on the kpu.go.id page. So far, the KPU RI has carried out various methods and steps in order to be able to counteract the flow of disinformation from social media and the internet.
Previously, the Head of the Public Relations Division of the National Police Inspector General Pol. Dr. Dedi Prasetyo conveyed that the National Police Headquarters has mapped out six strategic issues that have the potential to occur in the 2024 Simultaneous Elections if they are not followed up immediately. One of them is the spread of hoax news and hate speech in carrying out campaigns such as attacking other candidates through social media.
He hoped that the activities organized by the Indonesian National Police (Polri) would be able to provide a much clearer picture of the potential and also what kind of efforts to be able to anticipate types of violations in the implementation of the 2024 Election, as well as how to maximize supervision. holding elections in the context of identity politics practices, and the issue of SARA.
The security forces also hope that there will be a strong strategic mapping to be able to fight disinformation or fake news and hoaxes, hate speech related to elections to explain how the mitigation measures that have been prepared by the National Police when fighting counterproductive narratives in cyberspace ahead of the 2024 Election.
The 2024 election democratic party event is indeed a political contestation which will certainly be able to increase tension in society. With the increased tension, it is not uncommon for certain individuals to take advantage of the situation by spreading a lot of disinformation in society through social media and the internet. Therefore, many appropriate strategies are needed to prevent the spread of hoaxes regarding the 2024 Election.
)* The author is an Alumni of FISIP Unair
