Hoax Cases in Indonesia during the Pandemic

The Ministry of Communication and Information of the Republic of Indonesia through the Kominfo.go.id page recorded 2,624 hoaxes regarding COVID-19 in the period 23 January 2020 -3 March 2021. Of this number, 2,278 hoax news have been followed up by Kominfo and the rest are still in process.
Thousands of hoax news spread across four internet platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube. The most hoaxes found on the Facebook platform reached 2,055 cases. Followed by Twitter as many as 496 hoaxes, Youtube 49 and Instagram 24 hoaxes. At least, 1775 hoaxes on the Facebook platform were successfully taken down by Kominfo, 438 cases of hoaxes on the twitter platform have been followed up while hoaxes on YouTube and Instagram there are still 4 hoax cases that are still in the process of being handled further.
Social media through its 4 largest platforms is indeed the biggest source of hoaxes with the most cases being found. The flood of COVID-19 information from social media is a separate problem because if someone does not have good literacy skills, inaccurate information from social media will spread very quickly in the community.
There are 3 reasons why social media is a fertile field for the spread of hoax information, First, humans have a basic instinct to want to know. With curiosity and high anxiety during a pandemic, people tend to receive information about COVID-19 that is considered interesting and important. This acceptance often ignores critical thinking processes in processing information.
Second, the development of information and communication technology in various forms of gadgets in the hands of modern humans makes its users both recipients and senders of messages. Responsibilities and ethics of social media users are often forgotten because of the desire to immediately share or produce information related to COVID-19.
Third, with the ease of accessing information on social media, people tend to forget to verify, analyze, and evaluate information about COVID-19. In other words, people ignore the process of processing information before sharing it with other social media users. Another problem is the emergence of an echo chamber which causes social media users to only believe whatever information they deem to be true. Usually this echo chamber arises because someone often receives the same information, although not credible or even misleading, over and over again.
“There is nothing else that can be done to prevent hoaxes other than by increasing literacy throughout the community. In addition, the role of the government is also very important in intervening in the distribution of information and carrying out stricter supervision so that COVID-19 hoax news in the community can be minimized,” explained Gadjah Mada University Communications Observer, Novi Kurnia.
The community is very easy to spread news that is not necessarily true, many cases of hoaxes are also found starting from chain messages in a group that are not read to completion or the source is not clear. This kind of information is clearly very disturbing to the public during this pandemic.
Novi said that the targets for hoaxes were very diverse, ranging from individuals, groups of people or the general public. Depending on the type of hoax, as well as the purpose of spreading the hoax. As an example of a hoax about the COVID-19 conspiracy theory. In this case, it is clear that the target is the general public and the impact of this hoax is to disrupt the handling of the pandemic in the global and Indonesian contexts.
The COVID-19 pandemic raises various problems in the fields of health, economy, politics, social, and information and communication technology. One of the troubling issues is the emergence of an infodemic that WHO considers as dangerous as a pandemic.
Infodemic is the abundance of information related to the pandemic that can actually lead to various forms of information chaos such as misinformation, disinformation and malinformation.
“The public must understand misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. These three things are sources of hoax news that are rarely understood by the public, thus making the spread of hoax news more massive,” explained Novi who is also active as the National Coordinator of the Indonesian Digital Literacy Activist Network.
Misinformation is wrong information spread by people who believe it to be true. An example of misinformation is about ginger and black pepper juice that can cure COVID-19. Disinformation is misinformation spread by people who know it is false.
For example, disinformation that the WHO has confirmed that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the flu virus. Malinformation is information that is based on reality but is used to harm other people, organizations or countries. Cases of malinformation were discovered when the names and addresses of the first COVID-19 patients in Indonesia were spread and misused.
People have various purposes for making hoaxes, some are motivated by money, for fun, because they want to be considered great by spreading information, because of political interests, because they believe what is narrated. There are also those who want to help other people or their religion but do not know that what they are spreading is a hoax. Many hoaxes with certain narratives work by targeting emotions. These emotions will breed hatred and hatred will motivate people to do mischief.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in Indonesia, there have been many cases of hoax news circulating in the community, among several hoax cases that have occurred there are several cases that have captured the public’s attention because they have a broad impact on the community. A hoax case that caused quite a stir in the public was the case of doctor Lois Owen who said she did not believe in the existence of COVID-19. This statement was made when she was a resource person on a television with the theme of death due to COVID-19.
In addition, Lois Owen said the cause of death was not due to COVID-19 but due to drug interactions in the hospital. This statement caused an uproar in society and the medical community. Lois was accused of spreading hoaxes about COVID-19. This is because her statement was considered baseless. She did not heed the call for discussion from the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI). She was arrested by the police for investigation.
After being investigated by the police, Doctor Louis was declared to have spread false news and or broadcast news intentionally which could cause trouble among the public and hinder the implementation of the prevention of infectious disease outbreaks that she carried out on several social media platforms.
The police consider that the opinion built by Lois has no basis. However, Lois was free from detention because the police saw that Lois had agreed not to run away. Lois has also admitted that the allegation about the case of death in the hospital is not due to COVID-19 but because of drug interactions in the hospital, it was purely a personal opinion that was built without doing research first.
Another hoax news case that is no less troubling to residents is the case of an empty ambulance hoax going back and forth on the road which was deliberately done to give residents fear. The case of an empty ambulance provocation that started with a hoax news occurred in Bantul, Yogyakarta, a young man violently assaulted an ambulance driver who passed in front of him while driving. The young man also broke the ambulance car window.
This young man admitted to doing this because he was provoked by the news he read about empty ambulances that deliberately passed by on the streets to scare residents. As a result of his actions, the young man has now been sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison due to the effects of hoax news that he swallowed raw.
Yogyakarta Veterans UPN Communication Observer, Senja Yustitia, revealed that the number of hoax cases about COVID-19 that still occurs today is due to the lack of literacy culture among the community. Literacy culture should begin to be encouraged in every level of society as a whole. Even today, people are still confused about the definition of hoax itself. The definition of hoax has shifted in meaning since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak until now. Currently the definition of Hoax can actually be used by a handful of people to smooth out the goals they want to achieve.
In the midst of a lot of confusion and uncertainty about the amount of information related to COVID-19, it takes toughness from each individual to filter out true and false information.
“Sometimes, many individuals cannot accept the reality of what they believe, so they make their own definition of COVID-19 information without considering common sense and logical thinking,” said Senja.
Senja added, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of the mass media is very important to convey true information. Convey the actual conditions and data to the public even though the reality of the information is bad. This needs to be done so that people can be introspective and maintain strict health protocols. Data on the increase of COVID-19 patients, data on patients who died and so on must still be reported not to scare but to make the public more alert.
Countries that can survive the COVID-19 pandemic are countries that are willing to take the risk of communicating and communicating openly to the public. By looking at all the possibilities that will happen in the future, the country will take concrete steps to minimize the spread of COVID-19 so that everything can be controlled properly.
Handling COVID-19 is a collaborative work between the government, the community and experts to create the right pattern of handling COVID-19. In terms of news distribution, the government should also do intervention on information circulating in the community.
“The intervention here is not in terms of restraining or silencing people’s aspirations, but rather the government’s control over widely circulated information related to COVID-19,” she explained.
The Indonesian Anti-Defamation Society (Mafindo) through the TurnBackHoax.ID website recorded 1,110 cases of COVID-19 hoaxes that occurred from January 2020 to July 2021. In the midst of the concerns of the Indonesian people who were pulling the Emergency PPKM (confinement) brake lever to suppress the spread of COVID19, digital media was still being flooded with with various disturbing hoaxes and incitements
Chairman of the Mafindo Presidium, Septiaji Eko Nugroho said, this Emergency PPKM must be accompanied by serious efforts to suppress the spread of pandemic hoaxes, because these hoaxes still play a role in people’s ignorance of health protocols, rejection of vaccines, and the death of residents due to making wrong decisions in critical situations. .
The legal process given to doctor Lois, will not necessarily reduce the rate of circulation of hoaxes, because the polarization between the rational and denial camps has already strengthened. This denial camp is very active on social media, one of which is through the Facebook group “End Pandemic” which has 13,000 members, and every day there is a lot of content that invites people not to believe in COVID-19 and the ongoing efforts to deal with the pandemic.
“Even if Dr. Lois stops spreading hoaxes, there will be other people who are later portrayed by this denial group,” he said.
The disparity between the number of hoaxes circulating and the clarification that reaches the public is still a big problem. Even though the mass media, fact-checking institutions, and the government have made efforts to check the facts, there are still more people who are exposed to hoaxes and not all of them are able to know the clarification.
The Presidium of Mafindo for Publication, Niken Satyawati, added that the existence of hoaxes could hamper the performance of the Task Force. The task of the Task Force becomes even more difficult because it has to deal with people who believe that COVID-19 doesn’t exist so they ignore the health protocols, people who are afraid of being COVID-19 so they don’t want to go to the hospital when their condition worsens. Hoaxes not only complicate the work of the Task Force but also volunteers from all walks of life and the community itself.
One way to suppress hoax news is to involve all forces to continue to inform the public the truth. Inviting the community, media, influencers, law enforcement officers, educational institutions, Family Welfare Empowerment (PKK) women and others to be involved in the fight against the COVID-19 hoax.
“Maybe hoaxes will not disappear but at least they will decrease because more and more people are finally aware of the importance of accurate information,” she concluded.