A number of activists of the Anti-Defamation Society of Indonesian (Mafindo) carry pamphlets to remind the public about fake news or hoaxes along a pedestrian area during a car-free day in Jakarta, Sunday (12/2). Coming into the regional elections cooling-off period, it is hoped that the people are not provoked by fake news or hoaxes.
JAKARTA KOMPAS — Fake news or hoaxes have become a lucrative business that corresponds to political interests and could potentially divide the nation. Public awareness needs to be increased and it is our job to put an end to this kind of business.
The hoax-disseminating business was reportedly carried out by Saracen group, the leaders of which were recently arrested by the National Police.
Saracen chairman JAS, 32, at the office of the National Police cyber crime directorate in Jakarta on Thursday (24/8), confessed to having submitted a proposal to a candidate during a mayoral election in Pekanbaru, Riau, 2017 to produce news stories attacking the rival candidate. JAS said he received Rp 60 million to Rp 70 million for each proposal within a working period of one month.
However, the proposal the police confiscated from JAS’ rented house on Jl Kasah, Pekanbaru, showed one proposal costs Rp 72 million. From that amount, Rp 45 million was used to create content for websites and on social media, Rp 10 million for JAS, Rp 15 million for buzzer and Rp 2 million for journalists who published the information.
Meanwhile, 800,000 Facebook accounts joining Saracen were allegedly hacked by JAS from thousands of accounts. From each group being hacked, he saved the email address of all group members and renamed the title of the groups as he wanted. The accounts hacked were from different countries, from Indonesia through Vietnam. “I hacked accounts promoting messages different from Saracen. Then, I personally administered the accounts and some others handled by my friends [in Saracen] to distribute Saracen’s message,” he said.
Saracen Cyber Team is among Facebook groups managed by Saracen. As of yesterday, the number of accounts in one of the Facebook group reached 135,744 accounts, 36 of which acted as the moderator who could delete posts and confirm new friend requests. Some of the 36 accounts were still active posting public contents. But, others were not active or limited their postings only for “friends”.
Meanwhile, the organizational structure of Saracen in the Saracennews.com site shows some names that are also mentioned in the Saracen Cyber Team group.
JAS said Saracen was created following a meeting of around tens of members of a group that supported one candidate in the 2014 presidential election. After some interactions through a Facebook group, they met directly in mid-2015 in North Jakarta. JAS arrived from Pekanbaru for the meeting.
Police cyber crime subdirectorate head Sr. Comr. Irwan Anwar said to avoid police detection JAS allegedly received payment directly from his clients. This made the police unable to know the amount of money JAS had received from the operation of Saracen.
Political interest
State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah political communication lecturer Gun Gun Heryanto said the Saracen phenomenon was not pure business. That group was also connected to political interest and the use of technology that could divide the nation.
“The target was short-term interest such as the regional election or general election. There were people who needed racial issues as weapons. This must be seriously taken into account because this network could get legitimacy and create market,” he said.
Hoax dissemination generally has three patterns. First, the information being disseminated took benefit from chaotic public opinion that they easily could get attention. Second, hoaxes generally use the reference of public figures although the information was twisted, edited or even fabricated. Third, those who disseminated hoax worked in syndicate through social media.
Hoaxes bring more problems, especially amid the people’s poor information and political literacy. In fact, if the people use their logics, they can easily recognize hoax from its general feature that it often comes from vague websites. Also, hoax normally offers information whose title and body text do not match and the news sources it quotes cannot be verified or without news sources. The information also often uses provocative and misleading titles.
House of Representatives member Charles Honoris of PDI-P said he received attacks of hoaxes during the 2017 regional election. “The attack was organized considering that the theme was similar and only the wording was different,” he said.
Achmad Baidowi, secretary-general of the United Development Party, said he had heard of a group called Saracen. “There was an offer for branding on social media and to counter negative news. Yet, I never got an offer for hate speech,” he added.
Information and Communication Ministry director general for application and information Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan said his office and the police regularly monitored negative and fake content on the internet.
Semuel said he hoped the public would be more aware and would not be easily provoked by hate speech or hoaxes.
