BAKTI Kominfo Discussion: 20 Years Of Social Media In Indonesia, No Good And Correct Social Media Education

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - BAKTI Kominfo held a discussion "Wise Social Media and Hoaxes during the COVID-19 Pandemic". During the discussion, a Youth Leader, Adhiwena Wirya Wiyudi, talked about the history of social media reaching Indonesia.

According to him, social media has been around for 20 years, when Friendster was booming. Then appeared in 2004 Facebook, 2005 YouTube, followed by Twitter and Instagram respectively.

"It continues until now with the WhatsApp chat messenger, the newest feature from TikTok. But what I highlight is, 20 years there has been no education on how to do social media properly and properly, so the Indonesian people just follow it," said Adhiwena in the discussion. Wednesday March 10th.

He said, technological developments are indeed very dynamic. Because it is so dynamic, the development of technology is faster than understanding what and how to use technology properly.

"Of the total population of Indonesia of 270 million, active social media users are more than 60 percent of the country's population in 2021. This means that the Indonesian people have a very strong influence on the development of social media, because in addition, one person has more than 2 gadgets," he said.

The problem is, with the development of technology and access to information, hoaxes are also being heard more frequently. Samsul Widodo, Expert Staff for Relations between the Ministry of Villages, Highest Regional Development and Transmigration, said that this hoax is indeed quite frightening if it is not handled.

"Even at the Police they have cyber security, at Kominfo they also continue to block sites that are related to hoaxes," he said on the same occasion.

"There are 140 million Youtube users in Indonesia, WhatsApp is 134 million and this is definitely growing. Facebook 130 million, Instagram 126 million, so it's quite large. This means that things related to hoax news and so on are very easy to happen. , "he added.

He also thinks that Facebook is the place that spreads the most hoaxes. On the other hand, Samsul appealed to the public to be more careful in responding to information on social media.

"The truth must be checked, don't be influenced and be careful with provocative titles, be careful and pay close attention to the source of the news," said Samsul.