The Importance of Community’s Active Role in Warding off Election Hoaxes, Bawaslu: Be Careful
Jakarta — Prudence is indeed a very deserving thing to continue to improve, especially including the active role of all elements of society in preventing the spread of hoaxes in the upcoming 2024 Election.
The handling of disinformation on social media during the General Election and Pilkada events was carried out by Bawaslu and the Coalition of Civil Society Against Election Disinformation.
Chairman of the Presidium of the Indonesian Anti-Defamation Society (Manfindo), Septiaji Eko Nugroho explained that in the future there will be many collaborative activities to ward off disinformation on social media regarding elections.
“To achieve the common goal of dealing with disinformation on social media in the 2024 General Election and Pilkada in accordance with their respective duties and authorities. The coalition and Bawaslu will carry out several collaborative activities,” he said.
On another occasion, the Chairperson of Bawaslu, Rahmat Bagja, explained that his party continues to strive to maintain the quality of elections without any disinformation.
He also reminded the public to be more careful when using social media, including when they want to upload anything on the internet.
“In the past, the saying that your mouth is your tiger means be careful with your mouth, now it might change to be careful with your fingers,” said Rahmat Bagja.
According to him, the literacy skills of the community are very important to improve so that they don’t fall into hoaxes easily.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the East Java Digital Communication Committee (KKD), Arief Rahman asked the public to be able to continue to be vigilant about the rampant news and hoax information on social media.
The reason is, the closer to the election democratic party, the more hoax information will circulate.
So that immediate steps are needed from the community to be able to counteract the spread of disinformation and misinformation.
Arief added that it is very important for the whole community to be able to counteract hoax information because it will have an impact and result in horizontal conflict.
“We have learned from many countries and regions that horizontal conflicts are often triggered by disinformation and misinformation, so the existence of the KKD is considered very strategic,” he said.
It cannot be denied that Indonesia has a very large number of social media users.
So that there is a potential for friction and also the increasingly dense flow of information milling about on social media is becoming increasingly out of control.
Therefore, all of these negative impacts can be minimized if the whole community is actively involved in counteracting hoaxes.
“With the large number of social media users in Indonesia, namely between 167 million active social media users, this can be a concern for KKD so that hoax news can be minimized,” added Arief.
