Hoax Commodification
Hate speech, provocation which can spark conflicts of SARA (ethnicity, religion, race and inter-groups), and baseless information or hoax turn out to become commodities which can be traded.
Amid difficulties of economic players to develop ordinary businesses, something which violates laws and morality even offer opportunities for a part of irresponsible parties to make a lot of profits.
Saracen group, which has just been uncovered with its members being arrested by the police for selling and offering baseless information, constitutes one of the evidences that the digital era gives birth to side effects beyond common sense. By utilizing euphoria and massive use of social media, the Saracen group was able to change hoaxes into a commodity which has the value for use and selling points to the consumers.
Who would have guessed that spreading slander, divide the nation, and kill the characters of the opposing political figures through hoaxes intentionally and systematically turns out to be able to be packed in business proposals offered to consumers with tariffs of tens of millions of rupiah. During a regional head election, for example, in order to bring down the names of the opposing political figures, Saracen offered a tariff of Rp 60 million to Rp 70 million in a work period of one month to produce the baseless information to corner the opponents until it becomes viral (Kompas, 25/8).
By relying on 800,000 Facebook accounts which have been hacked and under its coordination, Saracen has proven to be able to process the baseless information into news which was widely quoted by mass media and circulated through the social media quickly in just minutes.
Commodification
Besides Saracen, in Indonesia it is strongly believed there are still other groups which use the hoaxes as a new business field which is profitable without thinking further that what they created could divide the nation and stimulate conflicts manifested in the political elite circle. For a pragmatic group like Saracen, the most important thing is how to get a lot of profits by utilizing situation and information development which is getting increasingly uncontrollable.
Manuel Castells, a theorist of a network community, has actually reminded us since 1990s about the risk from the development of the information technology use which has been spreading widely in the public. Castells (1996-1998) in the well-known trilogy of his books, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, had written that the social changes which happened lately were no longer simply sparked by the capital power of the capitalism, but also marked by the increasingly dominant role and revolution of the information technology which later gave birth to information capitalism and information community.
Information superhighway and booming information in the cyber world does not only lead to formidable changes in the management and information role, but also lead to fundamental restructuring of information position as a commodity which can be traded. Information no longer simply become foundation for the economic players as the basis to decide the direction of the business development, but the information itself finally becomes a profitable commodity when it is packaged for the interests of economy and politics.
In the outline, there are two results to take place when information is processed into increasingly profitable commodities. First, there will be a blend of the limits between the economic and political interests with the information role as a commodity which can be packaged and traded. More than simply a data, at present the information has been metamorphosed into a dangerous weapon when its spread can be engineered.
Second, there is a process of commodification of baseless information which is intentionally packaged and then circulated through the social media as part of the new instrument to do the promising public hegemony in the political world which increasingly loses its ethics.
What was done by Saracen, for example, is a proof how the basic truth of a baseless information could no longer be traced when the information has become viral and intentionally and systematically spread. At a certain point, do not be surprised if hoaxes which are spread continuously will spread are later believed as reality with its own truth even though the original reality as its reference does not exist. The baseless information which becomes commodity turns out to become a powerful media to raise hatred, deviate from truth, which ultimately is vulnerable to divide the unity.
Critical literacy
Theoretically, a commodity will not be able to be sold and bought by the consumers if it does not offer the value for use which can be felt by the community, both directly and indirectly. The baseless information which is packaged and offered by Saracen group undoubtedly will not be able to be sold in the market if there is not consumers who really need it. A commodity is said to have the higher value of use if it offers benefits needed by the consumers community.
In order to finalize the baseless information trade case handling for the economic or political interests, the case has to be thoroughly investigated and becomes a lesson for all parties so as to prevent the same thing from happening again. What is no less important is how to fortify the community for falling victims from the spread of the baseless information.
The key word to prevent the hoaxes from easily affecting the community is through information literacy and critical literacy. McLaughlin and De
Voohd (2004) said the critical literacy is an ability where readers as the active participants in reading use the practices to move beyond passivity into a message reception accompanied with questions, testing or relating it with an existing power between the readers and the writers.
There are four things covered in the critical literacy: (1) critical literacy focuses on issues of power and emphasizes reflection, transformation and action, (2) critical literacy which focuses on problem and its complexity, (3) critical literacy strategy is a dynamism and is adapted to the context being used, (4) critical literacy observes and evaluates from various perspectives.
Educating the community since the early stage to always be skeptical and critical against fake information undoubtedly will be more beneficial than simply on the emphasis on the case of its legal action. When in the cyber world there is an amazingly fast explosion or information bomb, the users who are not supported and have critical literacy are not impossible to be trapped in the vortex of information which is simply hoax, or information whose truth cannot be justified.
RAHMA SUGIHARTATI
Lecturer of Social Sciences S-3 Study Program of FISIP of Airlangga University; Teaching Development of Information Community and Social Contemporary Theory