Civil Coalition Encourages Bawaslu To Arrange Rules For The 2024 Election Campaign Play On Social Media

The atmosphere of the press conference of the Civil Society Coalition for the Informative and Educative Election Campaign in Jakarta, Monday (26/6/2023). ANTARA/Tri Meilani Ameliya

JAKARTA - The Civil Society Coalition for Informative and Educative Election Campaigns encourages the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) to draw up a code of ethics for 2024 election participants in campaigning on social media (medsos). "We also encourage Bawaslu to draw up a code of conduct (ethical code) campaign on social media," said the coalition representative, Executive Director of The Indonesian Institute (TII) Adinda Tenriangke Muchtar in a press conference in Jakarta, Monday. Adinda conveyed that the coalition consisting of ten civil society organizations assessed that the code of ethics was important to be raised so that the 2024 election campaign on social media had a clear reference. In addition, he added, the code of ethics was needed to anticipate the massive emergence of disinformation, hate speech, and fake news in campaigns on social media. He conveyed reflecting on the experience of the 2019 Election based on the data of the Indonesian Anti-Fitnah Society (Mafindo), hoaxes or political-themed fake news, and hate speech dominated uploads on social media.

The spread of hoaxes and hate speech, he said, caused people to be divided or polarized, and some even ended up having conflicts between social media users. According to Adinda, social chaos has the potential to occur again in the 2024 election, as Mafindo data shows that ahead of the 2024 election, hoax trafficking on social media has increased six times than usual.

Furthermore, to optimize this anticipatory effort, he said, in addition to encouraging the preparation of a campaign code of ethics on social media, the Civil Society Coalition for Informative and Educational Election Campaigns encourages Bawaslu and the General Election Commission (KPU) of the Republic of Indonesia to be more courageous and innovative in making regulations on the arrangement of political campaigns on social media that are specific, comprehensive, effective, and have an impact. The civil society coalition consists of TII, the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), the Indonesian Parliamentary Concerned Community Forum (Formappi), the Indonesian Madani Circle, Sejuk, Bank Indonesia, the Indonesian Election and Democracy Syndicate, Indonesia's Youth IGF, the Center for Disability Access Elections, and Indonesian Wikara Cakra.