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edia leaders gathering in Ambon on Thursday may spend more time talking about fake stories than the fishing business.

The capital of marine resource-rich Maluku is hosting Indonesia’s 2017 National Press Day on Feb. 9. The event is themed “The Press and the People of Maluku Rise from the Sea”.

Promoting this far-flung archipelago in eastern Indonesia with its coral reefs and copious tuna is on the agenda. However, the hot topics on the table are hoaxes, fake information and by extension hate speech.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is expected to speak at the event and address the fake news issue. Jokowi has faced his share of bogus stories and hate speech. It is a worldwide phenomenon linked to new US President Donald Trump and his former election opponent Hillary Clinton, as well as to incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Jokowi himself.

One piece of fake news that Jokowi has refuted was that 10 million Chinese people are working in Indonesia. His quick quashing of that rumor-driven story was meant to prevent it from undermining the substantial investment from China in his high-profile infrastructure program. The high-speed Jakarta-Bandung railway and coal-fired power plants benefit from Chinese capital.

“Many are voicing that 10 million, 20 million Chinese workers have entered Indonesia. When did the counting take place?” Jokowi asked rhetorically on Dec. 23 at a rally held in Karawang, West Java, to promote work competence. The number of Chinese workers in the country was 23,000, he stated.

Previously, Jokowi had been the target of libelous reporting. In May 2014 a weekly tabloid named Obor Rakyat (People’s Torch) emerged and folded in the heat of the presidential campaign with the intent to degrade and smear presidential candidate Jokowi, then governor of Jakarta.

The paper labelled Jokowi a puppet. It fabricated a front-page story stating that Jokowi was of Chinese descent and heaped invective on Jokowi’s mother. More than 200,000 copies were distributed at pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools) throughout Java, aiming to deny Jokowi of votes in Muslim-majority Indonesia. The creators of the tabloid were later charged with defamation in the Central Jakarta court.

In the case of Ahok, he has to bear the hateful incitements linked to his ongoing blasphemy trial at the North Jakarta court. Ahok has been charged with allegedly reviling the Quran, Islam’s holy book. Ahok is a Christian of Chinese heritage now campaigning to return as Jakarta governor in the Feb. 15 election.

On hate speech, a narrow definition is speech that has a significant probability of catalyzing or amplifying violence by one group against another. It can also include statements that incite fear in one group that “another group” plans to use violence. These definitions are cited in the 2015 UNESCO study titled Countering Online Hate Speech.

Much of the current fake news and hate speech are found on social media through intermediaries such as Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Journalists at the Ambon meeting should discuss ways to counter and minimize bogus and incendiary journalism. Legitimate Indonesian journalists adhere to Article 4 of the 2006 Journalism Code of Ethics: “The Indonesian journalist refrains from producing false, slanderous, sadistic and obscene news stories.”

False news is interpreted as something that a journalist knew was not in line with the facts at hand.

The main channel for fake news is social media. Tech companies that facilitate social media should be at the forefront of curbing hoaxes. Flagging and placing warning notices on suspicious items could be undertaken, if not the outright removal of the inflammatory item in question.

Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg shared thoughts on fake news in a Nov. 12, 2016 posting on his Facebook account.

“Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic. Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes,” Zuckerberg stated.

In a Nov. 18 posting, Zuckerberg outlined seven Facebook activities to combat misinformation: stronger detection with better technical systems; easy systems for people to report stories; third-party verification from respected fact-checking organizations; warnings through labeling false stories; raising the bar for related articles; disrupting fake news economics with ad policies; and listening to journalists and others to better understand their fact-checking systems.

In its terms of service, Facebook is explicit. Facebook’s terms forbid content that is harmful, threatening or has the potential to stir up hatred and incite violence.

In its community standards, Facebook elaborates that “Facebook removes hate speech, which includes content that directly attacks people based on their: race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender or gender identity, or serious disabilities or diseases”, the UNESCO study cites.

The bottom line is that resolving the issues of false news and hate speech calls for collective solutions. This involves internet intermediaries, policymaking authorities, the media and concerned citizens.

Media and information literacy initiatives as advocated by UNESCO are one vehicle. Antihate speech and antihoax news components could be operated in such initiatives to make people, particularly digital-savvy young people, alert and reduce the risk of violence and public mayhem.

Media leaders meeting in Ambon could make their mark by pledging to make the media free of fake news.
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The writer teaches journalism at Dr. Soetomo Press Institute (LPDS), Jakarta.