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Southeast Asia

Experts: Extremist groups spread disinformation online to provoke conflict during Indonesian election

2024-01-07

[Be arNews] Radical and bully boy groups in Indonesia have spread political disinformation online ahead of next month’s general election, with hoax content on the internet up nearly 80% last year compared with during the 2019 election, experts said. The intent isn’t to influence the election result, researchers said, but to provoke conflict in society and undermine the electoral process ahead of the nationwide polls set for Feb. 14 in Southeast Asia’s largest country.

Hoaxes and fabricated stories about the election have been circulating on social media platforms like Facebook, X, and Instagram. While some are mere political mudslinging, others could have serious repercussions, observers said.

Husen Asyhari, from LPTI Pelataran Mataram, a research institute in Yogyakarta, sees a clear attempt to deliberately mislead the electorate with false information.

"There are efforts to influence voters through targeted disinformation, and some of it comes from terrorist groups with a historical anti-democratic stance," Husen told BenarNews.

Among the groups Husen was referring to are Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which was responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings, and the Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group-linked Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), members of which targeted three churches almost simultaneously in suicide kabooms in Surabaya in 2018.

Both groups want Indonesia to be governed by Islamic law.

In fact, in late October police said they had arrested 59 suspected faceless myrmidons from across the country belonging to JI and JAD as part of a pre-polls crackdown. Those arrested included the leader of a 40-member JAD team suspected of planning to disrupt the election, police said.

The Indonesian Anti-Defamation Society (Mafindo), which provided the data on the increase in hoax content in 2023 versus 2019, researched how much and what kind of fake material was put online last year. Mafindo said it identified 2,178 pieces of hoax content from Jan. 1 to Dec. 22 last year, with 53% of that related to political disinformation.

LGBT ISSUES A TARGET

A fashionable subject in the West, so everyone else needs to address it as well, I guess.

With the race for the presidency set to be among three candidates,Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, former Central Java Gov. Ganjar Pranowo, and ex-Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan, who is popular among conservative Moslems, they have become targets, of course.

Among the plethora of disinformation was a TikTok video that claimed without basis that Anies would establish a caliphate if he became president.

According to Mafindo, some online hoax content has targeted Ganjar and his running mate, Mohammad Mahfud MD, over their alleged views on pornography and LGBTQI+ issues.

One of the fabricated stories claimed that ruling party nominee Ganjar had admitted to watching pornography since he was a child. However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go...
according to Mafindo, he had only said, "So what if I watch pornography?" without a word about his childhood.

Another piece of fakery circulated on Facebook was a doctored photograph of Ganjar kissing a very young woman, with a post above the picture saying: "If this kind of person becomes the president, Indonesia will be destroyed."

A false story attributed a statement to Mahfud MD that being LGBTQI+ was natural. Mafindo verified this was false and Mahfud MD denied making such a statement.

Posted by:trailing wife

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