Minister Of Communication And Information Budi Ensures That The Antihoax Task Force Of The Netral Communications And Informatics Will Take Action In The 2024 General Election

Illustration of someone surfing the internet in the midst of hoax threats and frequent leaks of personal data. (Pixabay)

Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie Setiadi ensured that the Antihoaks Task Force (Satgas) under his responsibility to work would be more intensive ahead of the 2024 General Election.

He said the Antihoaks Task Force was increasingly working considering that during this political year, hoaxes that have the potential to divide and contain sensitive content have increased dramatically compared to the previous year.

"We have an Antihoaks Task Force at the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, and indeed we are working more diligently considering our job is to explain to which communities are hoaxes and fake news," Budi said at the Ministry of Communication and Information Office, Central Jakarta, Thursday, November 2, as reported by Antara.

The Minister of Communication and Information further ensured that the Ministry of Communication and Informatics would continue to take a neutral position while dealing with political hoaxes circulating in the period ahead of the 2024 General Election.

Furthermore, he emphasized that all hoaxes that have the potential to divide the nation will definitely be handled and cut off access.

"Anyway, our Ministry of Communication and Informatics is neutral, whoever the candidate is, whatever the party is, if there is a hoax, there is slander (in the digital space), we can process it," he said.

Even Budi said that for hoax content that was considered to have the potential to cause direct conflict to the community, it was confirmed that the perpetrators were spreading or what made them could be charged according to the applicable law.

Previously, on Friday 27 October, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics revealed that hoaxes regarding the 2024 General Election increased dramatically in 2023 compared to 2022.

"Throughout 2022, there were only 10 election hoaxes, however, during January 2023 to October 26, 2023 there were 98 election hoax issues. This means that there has been a nearly 10-fold increase in hoax issues compared to last year," said Budi at the Media Center of the Ministry of Communication and Information, Jakarta.

The increase in hoaxes related to the issue of the election was even more significant when entering July 2023 and continued to increase until October 2023. Even in the latest data from the Ministry of Communication and Information for October 27, 2023, three new hoaxes have been found, which show that the spread of hoaxes related to the election is indeed heating up.