Page 7 - Harmonisation of Anti-Fake News Legislation in ASEAN Flip Book

Dr Robert Smith
an increase of 12 million between April 2019 and January 2020.6 It is claimed that this growth is not compensated with an improvement in computer literacy.7 A study of a sample of smart phone users across Indonesia found that only 25% of its respondents found it was easy to detect a hoax whilst 31% found it difficult.8 Over 53% often received a hoax message whilst a further 45% responded that they sometimes received fake messages.9
Financially motivated cybercrime is rampant and fake news is used to inflame political racial and religious tensions with messaging applications used to spread extreme Islamic ideology and to raise funds.10 Regardless of the origins of the fake news and conspiracy theories, Hui argues that they have “clearly reduced trust between Indonesian citizens of different political, cultural and religious affiliations, as well as between the government and its constituency”.11 Tapsell notes that the term ”hoax news”, which he claims has a similar meaning to the term “fake news” which is used elsewhere, has entered the Indonesian lexicon rather than fake news.12
To counteract its impact, Indonesia has enacted the following legislation:
6 Ibid.
7 Randi Eka, ‘Hoax Distribution Through Digital Platforms in Indonesia 2018’, Dailysocial.id (Blog Post, 16 August 2018) <https://dailysocial.id/research/hoax-distribution-through-digital-platforms-in- indonesia-2018>. DailySocial used a quantitative research method to investigate the experiences of 2032 respondents from across Indonesia; 58% were male; 77% were from Java; 53% were from the 20-29 age demographic; 16% aged 19 or less; 17% in the 30-35 demographic and the remainder 36+.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Resty Woro Yuniar, ‘Can Indonesia’s New Cybercrime Unit Win its War on Fake News?’, South China Morning Post (online, 18 February 2018) <https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/ article/2132683/can-indonesias-new-cybercrime-unit-win-its-war-fake-news>.
11 Jennifer Yang Hui, ‘Fake News as Shared Challenge: Mutual Learning through Case Study of Indonesia’ (Written Representation No 82, 2018) <https://www.parliament.gov.sg/docs/default-source/ sconlinefalsehoods/written-representation-82.pdf>.
12 Ross Tapsell, ‘Indonesia’s Policing of Hoax News Increasingly Politicised’ (2019)(No. 75) ISEAS Perspective 1, 2.
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