Social Media and the 2019 Indonesian Elections: Hoax Takes the Centre Stage

Summary

On 17 April 2019, elections were held across Indonesia, the third-largest democracy in the world. The 2019 elections were significant as the first-ever simultaneous presidential and legislative elections in the nation's history, all held within the same day. The complexity of the 2019 elections meant that effective communication strategies were more vital than ever in reaching out to electoral constituents. Social media, which has become an integral part of everyday social and economic life in the nation, is a natural channel to publicize political visions and missions and to galvanize support for parties and candidates.

As a digital commons, however, social media is inevitably weaponized as well. Concerns over the “dark side” of social media in the form of disinformation (popularly called “hoax”, referring to the general phenomenon of falsehoods) received outsized attention throughout the campaigning period of the 2019 elections. The low barrier to entry and ease of sharing user-generated content means that social media is more easily used for all kinds of purposes, including negative ones. Aksi Bela Islam 212 (the 2 December 2016 Defend Islam Action), combined with intense political mudslinging in past elections, resulted in “hoax” becoming a term that means division to many Indonesians, potentially tearing apart the young democracy.

This chapter examines how social media interplayed with electoral politics in Indonesia's 2019 elections. The first part of the paper outlines the role of social media in the nation's past elections. Social media has been weaponized for use in political smear campaigns since its introduction on to the nation's political landscape in 2012. Aksi Bela Islam 212 gave rise to fears that hoaxes could further split the nation and affect subsequent elections. Combined with worldwide events such as the 2016 US presidential election, it changed Indonesia's understanding of the so-called “fake news” phenomenon. The second part of the paper discusses how the notion of hoax was central to campaign discourses in the 2019 elections. Social media was the dominant means, although not the only one, by which hoaxes were disseminated.

Social Media and Political Contestation in Past Indonesian Elections

Indonesia is nicknamed the “Social Media Nation”. In terms of numbers, active social media users comprise 48 per cent of the country's total population. Indonesian netizens on average spend three hours and twenty-six minutes on social media.