Hacking Of Online Media, Becomes New Threat Of Journalistic Work

JAKARTA - The silencing of press freedom and freedom of expression in cyberspace is increasingly dangerous. Recently, a number of journalists and online media have been hit by cyber attacks to hacking.

The Legal Aid Institute (LBH) of the Press noted that there were at least three reports related to digital attacks. Two of them were hacking actions experienced by the Tempo.co and Tirto.id websites, as well as bullying efforts experienced by a Detik.com journalist.

"This is a new threat that has never happened or experienced before. There are intolerant attitudes to silence journalistic activities," said Chairman of the Indonesian Journalists Alliance (AJI) Abdul Manan in a virtual press conference of the Journalist Safety Committee Against Hacking, Monday, August 24.

According to him, this is a new form of threat to journalistic activities. Moreover, this hacking action is also an effort to reduce the media's critical attitude towards government policies.

This was seen when the media questioned the news about the discovery of the COVID-19 drug by Universitas Airlangga together with the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) and the Indonesian Army. Web pages and related articles on Tempo and Tirto were scrambled and deleted by hackers.

"The provisional suspicion is that hacking is related to news that is currently developing rapidly, such as the COVID-19 drug, UNAIR, TNI, and BIN," he explained.

According to him, the hacking violated Article 18 paragraph 1 of the Press Law, namely obstruction of journalistic activities. This was done as part of preventing press freedom in Indonesia.

Because it had never happened before, Manan asked the mass media and journalists to be open. The goal, he said, was so that the mass media, especially online, could find out the scale of the attack so that the same incident did not happen in the future.

"We should suspect a digital attack such as warning the media to stop acting or question the things that the government did during a pandemic. This accusation must be proven, but this is the assumption we have," he continued.

On the same occasion, Executive Director of LBH Pers Ade Wahyudin hopes that online media companies can be open about the hacking cases they have experienced. LBH Pers has also opened a complaint post for online media that has experienced hacks related to news coverage.

"We hope that media companies will open up if there is an attack on the media so that the public and civil society can support it. This will not only affect the media, but also extend to society," he added.

According to him, the opening of the complaint post will be carried out jointly with the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and the Journalist Safety Committee (KKJ). After receiving the complaint, LBH Press will collect data related to it and then report it to the authorities.