Ahead Of The 2024 Election, Hoaxes In The Satire Category Start To Increase On Social Media

Illustration. Rows of props for the caleg campaign in front of Galuh Stadium, Ciamis, West Java, November 2018. (Antara-Adeng Bustomi)

JAKARTA - Network for Indonesian Democratic Society (Netfid) researcher Aida Mardatillah said the spread of hoaxes and hate speech was increasing ahead of the 2024 General Election.

"Ahead of the five-year democratic party, it's getting more and more popular," Aida said in a webinar broadcast on the BB EXPO Channel YouTube, Thursday, August 25.

He said that the content that emerged in the run-up to the general election was cyber bullying in the form of a satirical hoax. "By using political content that tends to contain content that attacks political figures or attacks each other between supporters of political parties," he said.

Aida took an example from the process leading up to the previous general election, in which many hoaxes appeared aimed at certain groups participating in political contestations.

"Kominfo also found more than a thousand hoax information on social media with black campaign content ahead of the 2019 Election, meaning that it is in the process, not in the contestation in its implementation," he said.

Furthermore, based on the Antara report, he revealed several hoax content that received high attention from the public in the 2019 election, including the hoax case of Ratna Sarumpaet's persecution, the existence of ballots or empty containers that had been punched in, fake e-KTPs from China, to a number of people. accusations against President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).

Although the perpetrators often escape, Aida said that a number of regulations actually cover the spread of hoaxes and hate speech, such as the Circular Letter (SE) of the National Police Chief Number SE/06/X/2015 regarding the handling of hate speech, the Law on Information and Electronic Transactions (UU ITE). ), the Law on the Elimination of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination, to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

He also recommended that the KPU or Bawaslu make internal regulations and circulars to prevent the increase in the circulation of hoaxes and hate speech on the way to the 2024 General Election.

"Because if you look at the Election Law Number 7 of 2017 then the Pilkada Law does not specifically regulate hoaxes and hate speech, but if there are people who do this, they can be subject to general rules outside the Election Law and the Pilkada Law, " he said.

Therefore, said Aida, joint anticipation is needed from all parties to prevent the increase in the circulation of hoaxes and hate speech ahead of the 2024 General Election so that Indonesia's democracy index will no longer decline, which refers to data from the Central Statistics Agency, Indonesia's democracy index is rising.

"Here, there are four I made how to fight hoaxes and hate speech, there is literacy, the role of civil society, and also the role of the government, and the political parties of politicians themselves," he said.