TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Communication and Informatics Ministry (Kominfo) in commemorating the National Press Day on February 7 said it had discovered 9,546 hoax contents spread across a multitude of internet and social media platforms within the past three years starting on August 2018 to early this year.

“Apart from hoaxes, we found negative contents such as online money lending scams up to radical aspects,” said Kominfo’s director of informatics empowerment Bonifasius Wahyu Pudjianto in his speech on Monday.

He acknowledged the dissemination of negative contents was a challenge that everyone must face amid the developing digital sector, which is why he insisted on the need to constantly educate people amid the high absorption of online information, especially social media.

The ministry’s survey involving 10,000 respondents across over 500 cities in Indonesia in 2021 detected a change in how the general public receives information where people prefer social media as their main source of information that constitutes up to 73 percent, while around 59.7 percent find comfort in television as their main source of information, and only 26.7 percent depend on online news portals for information.

He added Kominfo continued to push for a safe and empowering digital ecosystem and empower people in general. One of which is by pushing for the ratification of the Personal Data Protection Bill and its derivatives.

Read: Past Hoax Cases Cost People's Lives, Says Kominfo

FRANCISCA CHRISTY ROSANA