House Of Democracy Asks KPU To Clear Campaigns On Social Media

The 2024 election campaign on social media must be more clearly regulated. (photo: doc. between)

JAKARTA – The use of social media for campaigning has never been clearly regulated by the General Elections Commission (KPU). Campaign rules on social media such as Facebook and Twitter are mostly self-regulated according to the social media companies themselves.

The leader of the House of Democracy, Ramdansyah, has now asked the KPU to make a clear definition of campaigns on social media ahead of the 2024 Simultaneous General Elections (Pemilu).

"House of Democracy asks the Indonesian KPU to make a clear definition regarding campaign activities on social media," said Ramdan in a statement received in Jakarta, Monday, June 6.

The rapid development of technology and information has made social media one of the platforms that politicians can use to introduce themselves to the public and attract support ahead of the 2024 Simultaneous Elections.

Not only limited to content regarding the presidential and vice presidential elections, he explained, content about the election of legislative members and regional head elections also has the potential to flood social media in the coming political years.

Old and new political parties, according to him, can socialize their mainstay parties, candidates, and presidential candidates on social media for an unlimited duration.

Therefore, Ramdan asked the KPU to make a clear definition of campaign activities on social media.

“New political parties with their candidates (legislative candidates) can campaign intensely on social media from an early age. With clear KPU regulations, individual participation in the social media space is not a wild or illegal campaign," said Ramdan, as quoted by Antara.

He explained that the open policy space regarding the duration of the campaign must of course refer to Article 276 paragraph (1) of Law no. 7 of 2017 concerning Elections which states that election campaigns in the form of limited meetings, face-to-face meetings, distribution of election campaign materials to the public, and installation of teaching aids in public places shall be implemented three days after the determination of the Permanent Candidate List for Members of DPR, DPD, Provincial DPRD, and DPRD.

This article does not clearly and clearly regulate how the campaign content is used for social media. It is only mentioned that the mass media advertising campaigns for print, electronic, internet, and general meetings are carried out for 21 days as regulated in Article 276 paragraph (2) of the Election Law. "The KPU regulations that will be made as technical regulations must be in sync with the Election Law," he said.

“Personal political participation in the form of informal campaigns must be given a wider space in the form of KPU regulations. The general public can interact about the existence of new political parties, legislative candidates, and the preferences of presidential candidates," said Ramdan.