Indonesia fights against false news after earthquake and tsunami

According to false reports, the island of Sulawesi, which has already been affected by the double tragedy of last Friday that claimed the lives of more than 1,400 people, was reportedly shaken by another major earthquake.

Another Facebook post used a photo from the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami to describe what it claims to be a scene in the seaside town of Palu.

A legend said: "Those who share this message will be spared by calamities".

Setyo Wasisto, spokesman for the Indonesian National Police, told Kompas TV on Thursday that nine people have been arrested on suspicion of spreading false information. Most of the content was posted on Facebook, he added.

Indonesia has a long-standing problem with Internet hoaxes and false news is never far behind after a disaster.

The country has one of the largest online audiences in the world, with a population of 260 million and one of the highest social media usage rates in the world.

"If someone predicts another massive earthquake or tsunami, that's false information," said Daryono, head of the earthquake and tsunami information center of the geophysical agency. , which, like many Indonesians, bears only one name.

"If you release this type of information, you will create more suffering and confusion for people."

Teams from the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and the Disaster Agency have used Twitter and other social media to demystify misrepresentations in recent days.

The spokesman of the Ministry of Communication and Information, Ferdinandus Setu, told AFP that a team of 70 people was working round-the-clock on fake reports about 39, a disaster, including the fact that the mayor of Palu was among the dead.

"We confirmed that the mayor is still alive and in good health," Setu said.

Crawling hoaxes

Once the team has removed the content, the ministry announces the results through regular press releases and also communicates the results to the police.

Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for the US government, seduced admirers for fighting to inform journalists 24 hours a day despite terminally ill cancer.

"I apologize if I can not answer all the questions from journalists, my friends, if I were in good health, I would do it anyway," Nugroho told reporters this week, while continuing to organize daily press briefings, calls and social media communication.

The hoaxes also occurred during the earthquake on Lombok Island near Bali this summer.

Indonesian police have more widely suppressed false news and hate speech online in recent months, in anticipation of the presidential election next year.

President Joko Widodo, who fought against false information on the Internet to be a communist, inaugurated a new cyber security agency in January.

The following month, the Ministry of Communication announced the deployment of new software to identify dummy information websites.

The members of the Muslim Cyber ​​Army (MCA), a group of poorly connected groups, accused of using Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to attack the government and stir up religious extremism, have been assembled.

Some 130 million Indonesians – about half of the population – spend an average of nearly three and a half hours a day on social media, one of the highest rates in the world, according to data from the US. 39 London creative agency We Are Social and the Hootsuite social media management platform.

The country was also late to introduce digital literacy programs, experts say.

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