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Indonesia may fine companies that accommodate online hoaxes
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Crowdsourcing-based application Turn Back Hoax is designed to gather false information and hoaxes on the internet. (Turn Back Hoax/File)
T
he government is drafting a regulation to enable the authorities to fine companies such as Google and Facebook that fail to retract hoaxes or false news from their newsfeeds, a presidential spokesperson has said.
“[Such] companies should be willing to retract hoaxes, slanderous news or other similar information within 24 hours,” presidential chief of staff Teten Masduki said on Tuesday at his office, as quoted by kompas.com.
“There will be a regulation that authorizes the government to fine platforms like Google, Facebook and others, should they accommodate hoaxes,” he added.
(Read also: Jokowi declares fight against disseminators of fake news)
He said that the planned regulation, currently being studied at the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister, was adopted from a regulation in Germany.
The ministry recently launched a plan to establish the National Cyber Agency (Basinas), which will be designated with, among other things, tackling the spread of false news containing slanderous or hate-fueled information. (fac/dmr)
