SUMMARY

The growth of internet users in Indonesia is massively increasing every

year. By 2017, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics recorded that
143.26 million of people in Indonesia are active internet users. This number
increases 10.56 million from the previous year, when the total amount of the
internet users were still 132.7. This great number shows how internet can be a
strategic platform and play a significant role in development.
Despite the benefits that internet offered, there are several disadvantages
that might come within. One of those disadvantages is the existence of echo
chamber. Echo chamber defined as a place where a group of participants choose
to preferentially connect with each other with the exclusion of outsiders, the more
fully formed this group is the more isolated it is from the introduction of outside
views. Unfortunately, these echo chambers are often misused by people with
certain interests by spreading some deceptive news, or known as hoax. This
phenomenon is widely happening in Indonesia, where 76,195 hoaxes are detected
by 2017.
Realizing the negative impacts that hoaxes might cause, Indonesian
government formed some regulations to abolish the hoaxes. The government even
criminalized the act of spreading hoax. The goal is clear, to abolish the hoaxes
from internet, so people can use internet comfortably.
However, criminalizing hoax can’t be considered as the best way to
abolish them because it doesn’t revoke the main reason why hoaxes are spreading
around us. Criminalizing certain act without both participation and understanding
from people is not an effective way to reach the goal. It is better to educate people
about how to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate the information on the
internet instead. Those abilities are known as media literacy.
There are several types of intervention that can be done to increase media
literacy, one of those ways is by using the instructional intervention model.
Instructional interventions model requires active action from both subject and
object to criticize the information by discussing it, and it doesn’t require
restriction over the object to access information.
 Crowdsourcing monitoring is one of the methods to implement the concept
of instructional intervention in Indonesian society. However, to start this
crowdsourcing monitoring some basic knowledge are needed, and as a
consequence of monitoring we also need a place where people can report the
results of their monitoring activity. This paper initiated the idea to place the
education, verification, and monitoring function in one integrated application.
The education function will be done in two ways. The first ways is by
posting several writings or communicative posts about hoax so people can read
and learn about what actually hoax is. The second way is to create fun games
about hoax, either about hoax identification or just some trivial questions.
The verification function can also be divided in two ways. The first one is
by providing a platform for everyone or related institution to verify hoaxes. The
second one is by letting people to know the truth by themselves, later on they can
post their findings in the application by attaching relevant proofs.
The monitoring function is an implementation of crowdsourcing
monitoring. By using the application, those who find hoaxes in internet can
immediately make reports and give relevant evidences as attachment to the
apparatus. The informer can also track their reports also from the application. As a
return, the informer will get certain points which can be exchanged with some
vouchers when it reaches certain amounts.
This application will involve many stakeholders, such as government,
corporates, the internet providers, non-government organizations, and of course
people of Indonesia who use smartphone and internet in their daily life. The
involvement of many stake-holders shows how potential this application is
because it could reach big amount of people.
With the use this application, peoples’ understanding of hoax could be
increased as well as the understanding of media literacy. Moreover, people’s
participation in law enforcement can also be accommodated, so the regulations
about hoax can be effectively applied. The “peace, justice, and strong
institutions”, which lies in the 16th goal of SDGs, can be reached. Since this goal
is applied in internet, which plays significant role in development, finally the
sustainable development itself can be easily achieved.