Police Anticipate Fake Accounts On Social Media Ahead Of The 2024 General Election

Head of the Public Information Bureau (Karo Penmas) of the Public Relations Division of the National Police Brigadier General Pol Ahmad Ramadhan has begun to anticipate the rise of fake accounts circulating on social media (medsos) ahead of the 2024 General Election (Pemilu).

This reflects on the experience of the 2019 Election where these anonymous accounts often make hate speech to ethnicities, religions, races and intermediaries (SARA). Even so, he ensured that the owners of the fake accounts could still be arrested, because his party had cyber patrols that oversee all social media.

"This may be (there are elements), use fake accounts, if on the road there is a cyber patrol (Polri). Don't try to slander using fake accounts, get caught, so don't feel like you're using a fake account," said Ramadhan, quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, May 31.

For this reason, he reminded the public to use social media wisely during the 2024 General Election. Do not be easily consumed by hoax information or lies spread by these fake accounts.

"In order not to be caught in the law, the media means to choose wisely without vilifying. Don't slander, don't pit each other," he said.

On the other hand, the National Police is also worried if there is an issue of SARA at the five-year democratic party. This is because the process is long, especially in conjunction with the law.

"For example (a personal problem), restorative justice can be done, it can be resolved without a legal process. If it contains hatred for one of the tribes, SARA, it cannot be tolerated anymore," explained Ramadhan.

Previously, Executive Director of The Indonesian Institute (TII) Adinda Tenriangke Muchtar assessed that campaigns on social media (medsos) are very important to regulate to ward off the spread of hoaxes, especially ahead of the implementation of the 2024 General Election.

"Our research found that there are still weaknesses in campaign rules on social media at this time. The existing rules are still not specific and detailed about campaigns on social media," said Adinda.

Adinda explained that the campaign arrangement on social media reflects on the 2019 election, which has a high number of hoaxes spread on social media.

"Even now, the content of social media hoaxes in the 2019 General Election has been replayed ahead of the 2024 General Election," he said.

He said that in the regulatory aspect, there are still differences in perceptions between the KPU and Bawaslu in looking at campaign definitions, definitions of social media to differences in managing campaign accounts on social media.

According to him, in the TII study, it shows that there are still human resource problems in regulating and supervising the social media accounts of election participants.