The Ministry Of Communication And Information Still Uses The SMS Blast Strategy To Campaign For The 2024 Peaceful Election, The Person In Charge Of The Directorate General Of PPI

Illustration of people doing activities while playing with their cellphones (HP). (Unsplash-Robin Worral)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Communication and Information (Kemenkominfo) has prepared a Short Message Service facility or "SMS blast" as one of the strategies to campaign for the narrative of the peaceful 2024 General Election.

"We provide SMS blast facilities to all mobile operator customers, this will (the content) be in accordance with the demands of relevant government organizations such as the KPU (General Voter Commission). We will forward the request to cellular operators and send it to all of its customers," said Director General of PPI of the Ministry of Communication and Information Wayan Toni Supriyanto in a joint meeting with Commission I of the DPR in Jakarta, Tuesday 19 September.

The SMS blast program will later become the responsibility of the Directorate of Post and Information Implementation (Ditjen PPI) of the Ministry of Communication and Information. The Directorate General of PPI is known to have a function of coordination with cellular operators.

Wayan explained, the SMS blast has a mechanism similar to the message distributed by the government during the COVID-19 pandemic to remind the public of health protocols.

The thing that is different is for the "Pemilu Damai" campaign, later the content that will be shared is about maintaining a conducive situation during the 2024 General Election.

Regarding the content of more detailed content, organizations such as the KPU or the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) will determine it.

KPU or Bawaslu will also be able to coordinate with the Directorate General of Information and Public Communication (Ditjen IKP) of the Ministry of Communication and Information so that they can create the right content to be distributed through the SMS blast.

Furthermore, when the content has been completed, organizations related to the General Election can convey it to the Directorate General of PPI to then be given to cellular operators, namely Telkomsel, Indosat Ooredo Hutchison, XL Axiata, and Smartfren so that it can be immediately distributed to customers.

In addition to the SMS blast, Wayan said he would take the initiative to invite cellular operators to join in adding the name of the signal with the addition of the word "Caimon Election".

It is hoped that this step can remind the Indonesian people to continue to maintain a conducive situation in the 2024 Simultaneous Elections.

"We have a thought to propose adding the name of the signal, so like COVID-19, there is a 'wear a mask' in the name of the signal. Now, we will also try to socialize the Peaceful Election in order to create a peaceful election," he said, confiscated by Antara.

The Directorate General of PPI will also prepare support for strengthening the connectivity network during the 2024 General Election so that later the vote count can continue to be safe and transparent thanks to a stable signal.