Towards The End Of Year 260 Hoax News Is Still Circulating In The Cyber World

JAKARTA - The circulation of fake news or hoaxes never ends in cyberspace. Even after several months after the inauguration of the elected president and his line ministries, hoax news is still circulating.

Every month, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics (Kominfo) continues its efforts to eradicate hoax news. At least 260 hoax news circulating in the community, Kominfo successfully identified through the Automatic Identification System (AIS) team.

In total, from AIS validation, during the period from August 2018 to November 2019, Kominfo has found 3,901 hoaxes. From this figure, the political category still dominates as many as 973 hoaxes.

"From the search for the Ministry of Communication and Information's AIS Machine, from August 2018 to November 2019, the number of hoaxes, fake news, fake news and hate speech increased sharply to reach 501 hoax items in April 2019," said Plt. Head of the Public Relations Bureau of the Ministry of Communication and Information, Ferdinandus Setu in his press release.

Political hoax news that surfaced last April was dominated by fake news that attacked presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs, political parties participating in the election, as well as election organizers, both the KPU and Bawaslu.

Followed by 743 hoaxes in the government category, 401 hoaxes related to health, 271 hoaxes related to crime, 216 international hoaxes, and 271 hoaxes in other categories. The rest are hoaxes related to natural disasters, religion, fraud, myths, trade and education.

To suppress hoax news, Kominfo continues to urge the public to always remain vigilant about the information received. For people who find suspicious information, they can complain to email: aduankonten@kominfo.go.id or twitter account @uhankonten or via the WhatsApp instant message application at 081-1922-4545.

On the other hand, Kominfo has also alerted AIS machines to continue to work on filtering the spread of hoax content on the internet. Currently, the AIS team consists of 100 personnel who are supported by filter machines to identify verification and validation of all internet content in circulation.