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Government to intensify social media monitoring

Jakarta Post - November 29, 2016

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Marguerite Afra Sapiie, Jakarta – The government plans to intensify online monitoring to prevent offline conflicts, many of which have been triggered by incendiary comments on social media.

The Home Ministry has said it is devising an integrated IT-based system to identify conflict-prone regions by looking at social media interactions.

The system would require stronger synergy and coordination among the intelligence community, the Early Awareness Society Forum (FKDM) and the Inter-Religious Harmony Forum (FKUB) in the regions, the ministry said.

It will provide real-time information on the escalation of hateful statements on certain issues online from various regions and those pooled at the ministry's data and information center.

"The data will serve as a reference for law enforcers and the government when drafting measures to prevent conflicts, including to identify issues, where they take place and the root causes," the ministry's national vigilance director, Heru Matador, told The Jakarta Post.

In the future, the system will be integrated with relevant law enforcement agencies and government institutions, so that all stakeholders can serve their respective roles in identifying the actors inciting hatred and to counter issues before they escalate into real conflict, Heru said.

The National Counterterrorism Agency's (BNPT) terrorism prevention director, Hamidin, said the force would also be involved, specifically for the creation of an effective early detection and prevention system on the spread of radicalization.

"The BNPT will participate since there should be people who are experts [on terrorism issues] and the BNPT will still be the coordinator of counterterrorism measures," Hamidin said.

According to data from the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII), 132.7 million people in the country have been exposed to the internet, representing half the population of the archipelago.

Of the figure, 129.2 million internet users use social media services, a significant increase from 76.5 million in 2014, while 92.8 million users access the internet through smartphones and 31.3 million of the figure post information on social media daily.

The internet has been blamed for the rise of social conflicts. The torching of 10 Buddhist temples in Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra, in late July, was triggered by statements on social media that provoked people in the area to attack members of the local ethnic Chinese community, following an incident involving a member of the Chinese-Indonesian community who complained about the volume of loudspeakers when broadcasting the adzan (call to prayer) at a local mosque.

Cyber Law expert Megi Margiyono said the monitoring of social media interactions would be effective for early detection, especially since in most cases, discussion on social media over certain issues tended to escalate before conflicts were taken to the streets.

He used the example of the 2011 Arab Spring, where social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, played a big part in organizing the uprising and other protests against state institutions in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and Jordan.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/11/29/govt-intensify-social-media-monitoring.html.