Healthy Living Without Hoaxes, UI Teaches High School Students To Identify News And Check Facts

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JAKARTA – Combating hoax news, Universitas Indonesia together with FactChecker UI and SMAN 21 Jakarta trains facts and news checking skills to live a healthy life without hoaxes.

"This activity is increasingly needed since the pandemic, because people have to live in "two realms", namely offline and online," said UI Public Relations Vocational Lecturer Devie Rahmawati, Sunday, October 10.

Kominfo data shows, in the period August 2018 to September 30, 2021, there were 9,025 hoaxes, of which the highest was the Health category hoax as many as 1,893; government as many as 1,176; followed by politics as many as 1,265 issues.

From January to October 4, 2021, there were 1,929 issues, with Facebook being the highest social media for spreading hoaxes, followed by Instagram and Twitter.

"The spread of hoaxes cannot be ignored, considering that there are at least three impacts of hoaxes, namely 3K, social unrest, political conflict and economic losses," he said.

For example, the recent attack in Yahukimo, Papua, was caused by a hoax in Jakarta; In 2019, political hoaxes left 8 people dead in the May 22 riots, which involved more than 400 rioters; while economic hoaxes are fraudulent investments that are spread online.

"The OJK data has proven to have harmed the public's finances of more than Rp. 100 trillion, in the period 2011 - 2020," said Devie Rahmawati, who is also the builder of the UI Fact Checker Student Community.

Servant of the UI Vocational Office Administration Vocational Office, Mila Viendyasari, said that this is where we assess that the community's ability is needed to be able to identify whether the information received can be accounted for or a hoax.

"Young people are strategic targets, because they have the latest digital skills, so it will be easier to transfer additional knowledge about fact checking and news," he said.

With various achievements, including the National Fact Checking Competition by Mafindo 2021, where Fact Checker UI won First Place in the Student category, Fact Checker UI would like more people to be able to master fact checking techniques.

The Fact Checker UI community, led by Nita Loviana, is trained to check the correct facts, starting from understanding how to use tools (tools or devices), how to identify a source or site on the internet, how to write fact check articles, and being able to manage time. well.

Other UI fact checkers, Yuli and Aulia, said that it takes tenacity and patience as well as the desire to clean the digital space from toxic hoaxes, through simple fact check training.

This activity took place online via Zoom and Youtube, which presented devotee Devie Rahmawati, UI Vocational Permanent Lecturer; Mila Viendyasari, Permanent Lecturer for Vocational UI; Yulistiana Prasetya, Nabila Aulia (UI Fact Checker Student Community.

Then, Dessy Ilsanti, Psychologist; Niyata Sirat, Principal of SMAN 21. The activity, entitled Smart Living, Health Living: Healthy Living Without Hoaxes, was attended by more than 500 online participants.*