Academic: Be Alert, Digital Space Can Be an Arena of Violence Production

Review the Culture and Media of the University of Muhammadiyah Surabaya (Umsura) Radius Setiyawan (Antara)

JAKARTA - The researcher of Culture and Media at the University of Muhammadiyah Surabaya (Umsura) Radius Setiyawan assessed that the digital space plays a role as an arena for the production of symbolic violence, following the assistance of the Densus 88 Anti-Terror Police to 68 children who were exposed to extremist ideology.

"Neo-Nazis and white supremacy are actually terms and symbols that are very closely related to the history of racial violence in Europe and the United States, a white supremacist ideology that is institutionalized and structurally violent," said Radius Setiyawan in Surabaya, East Java, Thursday.

Densus 88 Polri previously revealed that there was assistance for 68 children in 18 provinces who were suspected of being exposed to extremist ideology and potentially committing violence.

The children are known to be members of the True Crime Community (TCC), an online community that spreads extremist views such as Neo-Nazis and white supremacy.

In the context of the digital space, he said, extreme symbols and discourses often lose their historical and ethical meanings, so that they can easily be reproduced through meme aesthetics, online culture, and narratives of pseudo-rebellion.

"This phenomenon confirms the tendency of Neo-Nazi symbols and discourses to function as floating signifiers - despite their history of violence - and then be recharged by meme aesthetics, online culture, and narratives of pseudo-rebellion," he said.

He assessed that children are the most vulnerable group in the digital ecosystem because they are still in the process of finding their identity and social affiliation.

"Children are the most vulnerable subjects in the digital ecosystem. When the historical and ethical context is absent, symbols of hatred and practices of violence become easy to normalize and reproduce without critical awareness," said Radius.

Therefore, he emphasized that handling children exposed to extremist ideology is not enough just through prohibition or criminalization.

"The response needed is critical education that is able to dismantle the meaning of symbols, the history of violence behind it, and equip children with digital literacy and social ethics," he said.