How Indonesian Muslim Organizations Are Fighting Back Against Fake News

It was a photo that was sure to enflame tempers. West Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan was sitting down for a fancy dinner with members of the local ormas Gerakan Masyarakat Bawah Indonesia (GMBI)moments after the group got into a brawl with hardline Islamists outside the West Java Police headquarters.

"Cool right ;-) This thug NGO is protected by the police after torturing and assaulting the FPI. Indonesia sure is rad ;-) ;-)" the caption read.

Except it was all a lie. The photo was taken months ago, and about 1,500 kilometers away in Makassar, South Sulawesi. It showed a meeting between GMBI and the deputy mayor of Makassar Syamsu Rizal. Anton was the chief of the South Sulawesi Police at the time, and was present when the photo was taken. It was taken directly from his personal Facebook.

It's emblematic of how fake news and hoaxes work in increasingly connected Indonesia. Images, quotes, and statistics are taken out of context, twisted slightly, and then shared online via social media or through messaging apps like WhatsApp—where the app's group chat option is a popular source of news and gossip in Indonesia.

Countries worldwide are struggling to combat a flood of fake news. In the United States, the prevalence of false or misleading stories about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been blamed for swaying the election toward President-Elect Donald Trump. In Germany, Facebook is trying to cut fake stories from the feed before the country holds its next election this September.

But here in Indonesia, the rise of fake news is adding fuel to an already tense election season. Online hoaxes are spreading false claims that millions of foreign workers from mainland China were in the country, that China had tainted imported chili seeds with bacteria, or that President Joko Widodo was selling the country to Chinese investors. These hoaxes threaten to enflame ethnic tensions at a time when racist anti-Chinese Indonesian rhetoric is on the rise.

They also have real-life repercussions. Hours after the fake story about the West Java Police chief and GMBI hit the internet, the GMBI secretariat office was in flames. Police investigating the arson say that social media hoaxes played a role in the violence.

"A lot of these hoaxes are igniting racial or religious tensions," said Savic Ali, director of NU Online—a division of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). "[The hoaxes] become so viral in nature, that it affects many people."

Muslim organizations like the NU are now fighting back. The NU has partnered with Masyarakat Anti-Fitnah Indonesia (Mafindo) on #TurnBackTheHoax to combat fake news and create counter-narratives to extremist religious content being spread online. Savic, of NU Online, said the problem is a lack of media literacy in Indonesia—a country with a vibrant, but relatively young free press and rising internet penetration rates.

Indonesia has an estimated 88.1 million active internet users—the vast majority of which are connected over smartphones. There are more SIM cards than there are people in Indonesia—a country where people commonly own two phones—and nearly half of those are smartphones.

"These people contribute to the spread of hoaxes because they can't tell which media outlet is telling the truth," Savic said. "Even the ones that don't have reporters, which means they have no sources, no reporting whatsoever, no writers credited, no editorial contracts. It needs to be public knowledge that websites like that can't be trusted."

But there is a problem with trust of mainstream media as well. Most news outlets are owned by politically connected businessmen and coverage regularly suffers from biased or outright inaccurate coverage.

"In my observation, the long-term effects show a process of delegitimizing mainstream media," said Wisnu Prasetya Utomo, a researcher at the media watchdog Remotivi. "Aside from the media's framing of a few problematic issues, this tendency to distrust [the media] is quite concerning."

The central government is trying to combat the problem. It's setting up a new agency to tackle the issue. The Ministry of Communications has also blocked nearly a dozen sites accused of spreading religious and racial hatred. The ministry is now reaching out to Facebook to ask for help. And the Indonesian Press Council has posted a list of reputable news sources and plans to unveil a barcode system that verifies real media companies.

But fake stories have a habit of finding their way into otherwise legitimate news sources, said Irwan Rosmawan of the fact-checking Facebook group Sekoci. He said its up to everyone to make sure that hoaxes don't dominate the news cycle.

"It's a matter of responsibility," he said. "Indonesia is currently oppressed by the spread of false information. Personally I felt like it was my duty to fight for the education of the Indonesian people."

Irwan had simple advice for anyone wondering if a story that has them worked up is actually true. "Never just believe information you find on the internet or social media before verifying it," he said. "Always research the information you find online."