Indonesians in touch
Being social on the internet is what most Indonesian users prefer to be.
If there’s one thing that Indonesians can agree on when asked what smartphones and the internet are most useful for, it would be to access social media and messaging applications.
A survey conducted by the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) and the Indonesian Telecommunications Society (Mastel) showed that 95.1% of respondents use smartphones to access social media applications, while 73.7% said they use both mobile and fixed-line internet to access messaging applications.
The survey was based on interviews with 1,020 respondents across the country, more than half of them high school and university students, followed professionals and entrepreneurs, in October and November.
The most popular social media applications among respondents are Instagram with 82.6%, while 66.5% named Facebook and 49.6% said they liked Pinterest. The top chat application is Line with 90.5% respondents, followed by WhatsApp with 79.3% and Blackberry Messenger with 33.1%.
Typical of these users is 19-year-old waitress Andini Sugeha, who says she uses Facebook most of the time but the features she uses most are messaging services.
Uploading photos and chatting with friends are what draws user to these applications the most.
“I use Facebook to upload photos while I also do that on Instagram, while I use WhatsApp as well to chat,” Andini told Asia Focus.
Media professional Ami Afriatni said she has been on Facebook for a decade and still uses it mainly to stay in touch with friends and family members living in faraway places, while for her works she finds Twitter is most useful.
“It is helpful to get news updates, personal insights that public figures might offer, or official statements of some credible organisations,” she told Asia Focus. “People also often take to Twitter to respond to recent issues and to express their stance.”
As a budding photographer, she uses Instagram to sharpen her photographic skills, adding that the entertainment aspect of the photo sharing platform is the main draw for her.
In a reflection of the APJII and Mastel survey results, Ami said that social media and messaging applications are equally important but agreed that social media platforms have reached maturity while messaging applications are more important.
“I think there is room for improvement for this — let’s say creating messaging applications that are more friendly for elderly people or communities that are less exposed to technology,” she added.
But the proliferation on Facebook of hate speech, hoaxes and fake news, especially as they relate to political preferences, has made the world’s largest social networking platform no longer as enjoyable as it used to be, she said.
Internet stakeholders in Indonesia are well aware of the problems. In anticipation of regional elections this year, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the APJII and the Elections Supervisory Body have launched a campaign against online hoaxes.
The three agencies, along with local representatives of internet giants including Google, Facebook, Telegram, Twitter, BMM, Line, MeTube, Bigo Live and Live Me last Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding to curb the spread of hate speech and fake news related to the elections.
ICT Minister Rudiantara said the drive to issue such declaration started in 2016 and every party involved in the online “ecosystem” had an obligation to be part of it.
“So, there is no reason for a service provider not to take down [negative content] when the General Elections Committee and the Elections Supervisory Body request it because they are the independent bodies that organise the elections and are well aware of election rules and regulations,” Rudiantara said.
APJII chairman Jamalul Izza said application providers and related parties agreed it was time for a joint effort to curb negative content, as previous experience during the divisive presidential election in 2014 and the Jakarta gubernational election last year showed how content that incited hate and misinformation directed at some candidates can flourish and go viral.
“Therefore, as part of the internet ecosystem in the country we agreed to safeguard the 2018 regional elections to make them free from negative content and hate speech,” Jamalul said.
An APJII survey released in November showed that there were 132.7 million internet users in Indonesia, out of its 256 million population.
The ICT Ministry has been stepping up its efforts to ensure that the material available online in the country does not breach local standards for behaviour and morality. That includes material related to homosexual activity. In January it asked Google to suspend applications related to LGBT activities from its Google Play Store so that they are no longer accessible in Indonesia.
It also said it has handled 72,407 complaints regarding pornographic content on the internet in January. The ministry has now begun to operate an artificial intelligence-based censorship system using keywords to detect pornographic content online.
The US$14-million system was installed following years of manual monitoring that failed to curb the flood of illicit content on the internet, especially pornographic material. A ministry team will evaluate and verify the data crawled and take necessary measures such as blocking sites if they are validated to have inappropriate content.
“Global and national internet providers are urged to be active in ensuring the availability of positive content and suppress negative material from spreading,” ministry spokesman Noor Iza said.
“There is no reason for a service provider not to take down [negative content] when the General Elections Committee and the Elections Supervisory Body request it because they are well aware of election rules and regulations”
RUDIANTARA Indonesian ICT Minister