TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Indonesia awash with disinformation following disasters
Keep going: A group of people push a car damaged by floods in Kemang, South Jakarta, on Thursday
Change Size
Keep going: A group of people push a car damaged by floods in Kemang, South Jakarta, on Thursday. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
When an earthquake hits, most people run or hide, but for 70-year-old Bada this was not part of his plan.
Despite having the time, transportation and warning to flee, Bada resolved to stay in Palu, Central Sulawesi, rather than fleeing from the impending tsunami and pitched a tent in front of his shop house before sustaining serious injuries.
He like many others stayed behind on the basis of local beliefs, reinforced by social media messages after the quake, that natural disasters are punishments by God.
In the aftermath of the September 2018 earthquake and tsunami that killed almost 4,000 and demolished homes, Palu was awash with disinformation.
Many Palu residents turned to social media to determine how to respond to danger, but found fatalistic local folktales and perceptions about predetermined divine intervention.
Responses to natural disasters are being complicated by Indonesians’ increasing reliance on social media and their lack of proficiency in critically assessing the content.
For example, a 2019 Yogyakarta State University study found that a majority of students were likely to forward social media messages, regardless of whether they were true or not.
Online critical-analysis skills are crucial but are particularly lacking in remote communities where superstitions are most prevalent, said Alimatul Qibtiyah, a social media researcher from Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta.
“People from small villages are more likely to trust disinformation linking natural disasters to curses and bad behavior, rather than natural environmental occurrences,” Alimatul said.
Meanwhile, Mercy Corps disaster risk management specialist Djoni Ferdiwijaya said leaders were reinforcing such beliefs.
“During disasters, we still observe some government officials, politicians and religious leaders saying earthquakes result from people’s misbehavior,” he said.
Research presented at the 2019 International Conference on Islam and Higher Education shows this type of disinformation can exacerbate panic and people’s propensity to act irrationally, with tragic results.
One example they presented was a man named Daeng, who believed unsubstantiated claims about impending aftershocks, so he sold all his possessions at significantly less than their worth. The predicted aftershocks never arrived.
Djoni noted similar disruptions when a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck North Maluku this month.
“People took refuge for a prolonged period not because their houses were destroyed, but out of fear or confusion," he said.
“In such situations, humanitarian organizations need to provide assistance to more people than necessary. This also causes a prolonged ‘emergency situation’ and delays in the recovery process."
Disinformation also encourages theft and endangers the community, according to Daryono, the head of the earthquake and tsunami mitigation department at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).
“The spread of disinformation related to natural disasters can trigger extraordinary panic, looting and congestion. Crime and accidents can occur because everyone is frantically trying to survive. Disinformation can be as bad as the disaster itself,” he said.
“Some cases have occurred where disinformation is deliberately spread by bad people so that they can freely commit criminal acts such as theft, looting and other things because houses are empty.”
In the hours after the Palu tsunami, distressed people began stealing goods, acting on disinformation that the government would compensate all victims of looting.
Communications and Information Ministry spokesperson Riko Rahmada said the government was working to improve digital media literacy so that Indonesians become resistant to hoaxes. It also has strategies to minimize the impact of disinformation during high-stakes events, such as natural disasters.
“We have people ready for disasters [....] There is a small group that handles disinformation and when times of peril occur such as natural disasters, we already have contacts with natural disaster agencies,” Riko said.
Riko’s team identifies which hoaxes are going viral, then passes the information to government departments that conduct fact checks and circulate corrected information to the public.
Clarifying disinformation is not a simple task because of a disconnect between the platforms where false information is initially shared and where they are later clarified.
Disinformation tends to spread via WhatsApp, while government organizations and ministers use Twitter to publish clarifications. This is problematic because Twitter users are primarily the educated elite and urban Indonesians.
When debunking myths during emergencies, every second counts, National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Agus Wibowo said.
“It is very important to address the flow immediately so that the impact of disinformation can be minimized. It helps disaster-management teams focus resources during emergency responses.”
— Alice Sinclair and Daniele Antonaglia traveled to Indonesia with the support of the Australian government’s New Colombo Plan Mobility Scheme.
