Author: Ellen Mary Lechman

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Defining Digital Literacy in the Age of Computational Propaganda and Hate Spin Politics

Just like much of the rest of the world, Indonesia is facing a crisis of fake news and bot network infiltration on social media, leading to rampant propaganda, mass belief of disinformation, and not fully understood effects on voters that may affect them deeply enough to alter election results. Salma (2019) describes this crisis and identifies the solution as critical digital literacy, essentially educating people about the nature of fake news, algorithmic gaming of social media platforms, and identifying bot networks.

Salma consolidates the issue into two problems: computational propaganda and hate spin politics. She defines computational propaganda as “the use of algorithms, automation, and human curation to purposefully distribute misleading information over social media networks” (p. 328). This includes fake news created and spread on social media, bot networks driving attention to and changing conversation around particular issues, and the groups who organize these campaigns of disinformation. Her definition of computational propaganda encompasses much of the fake news crisis currently rattling the United States, as well as other countries.

The other primary issue she identifies is hate spin politics, which is less easily defined. She describes it as “exploit[ing] freedom in democracy by reinforcing group identities and attempt[ing] to manipulate the genuine emotional reactions of citizens as resources in collective actions whose goals are not pro-democracy” (p. 329). Hate spin politics seems to be the weaponization of identity politics and emotion in the digital political sphere, using religion, nationality, sexuality, and other identity markers to turn people against each other. It not only aims to segregate people based on their identities, but to inspire people to self-select into identify groups to create political warfare.

Computational propaganda and hate spin politics are carried out by several groups in Indonesia. Salma identifies Saracen and Muslim Cyber Army as responsible for various fake news campaigns, and there have been notable suggestions of similar political interference from Russia (Sapiie and Anya, 2019). These tactics have shown to be successful on a large scale and with dire consequences in the case of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok, the politician who was imprisoned for blasphemy based largely on an edited video that went viral on social media.

Indonesian government officials are keenly aware of the problem computational propaganda presents, taking significant steps to counter fake news spread. In 2018, they began weekly fake news briefings intended to address false stories that have gained traction (Handley, 2018). Salma suggests an increased focus in critical digital literacy, or teaching people to “evaluat[e] online content or digital skills but also to understand the internet’s production, management and consumption processes, as well as its democratizing potential and its structural constraints” (p. 333). Essentially, critical digital literacy is to computer or technical literacy what reading comprehension is to literacy. It’s not enough for users to be able to use a computer and navigate the Internet; there needs to be a solid understanding of what they’re seeing and why, including who might have produced content and how it came to be presented to that user.

Who could argue with that? Of course increased education about the creation and spread of fake news and algorithmic manipulation would be useful to nearly all Internet users, and it might help counter the spread and impact of computational propaganda. However, Salma offers no explanation of how digital literacy would improve hate spin, which seems to be a larger social issue that’s just as likely to occur offline as on. Hate spin politics also traffics in emotional responses, meaning strictly logical literacy training might not be enough to retrain people to grapple with emotional manipulation.

Paper:

Salma, A. N. (2019). Defining Digital Literacy in the Age of Computational Propaganda and Hate Spin Politics. KnE Social Sciences & Humanities, 2019, 323-338.

Additional Resources:

Sapiie, M.A. & Anya, A. (2019, February 4). Jokowi accuses Prabowo camp of enlisting foreign propaganda help. From https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/02/04/jokowi-accuses-prabowo-camp-of-enlisting-foreign-propaganda-help.html

Handley, L. (2018, September 27). Indonesia’s government is to hold public fake news briefings every week. From https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/27/indonesias-government-is-to-hold-public-fake-news-briefings-each-week.html

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Aksi Bela Islam: Islamic Clicktivism and the New Authority of Religious Propaganda in the Millennial age in Indonesia

Ahyar and Alfitri (2019) examine the way social media has reshaped the landscape of propaganda, and how it’s being used to change dominate religious authorities. Propaganda used to be a tool wielded almost exclusively by government bodies or other massive organizations. Ahyar and Alfitri say, “In previous eras – especially in authoritarian regimes prior to the reformation era in Indonesia – the state was an authoritative source for social campaigning” (p. 14). The resources needed to create and effectively spread propaganda were simply too great for small groups or individuals to harness.

Social media has completely changed this; the Internet has effectively allowed nearly anyone to create and spread their own propaganda for their own purposes, with the potential for massive virality and impact. Governments no longer have a monopoly on mass information (or disinformation) spreading. Ahyar and Alfitri explain that alternative groups have come to harness propaganda: “In the Reformation era in Indonesia, propaganda is also often done not only by the government, but also by social movements that echo multiple identities; be it a primordial identity of ethnicity, religion, political ideology and profession” (p. 12-13).

They go on to explain how social media has also revolutionized social movements and activism, again with disruption. Because movements can be planned and executed more easily, they need less hierarchical structure to form and continue. They say, “…Social movements appear massively outside the established political or institutional channels within a country. Social movement is closely related to a shared ideal and responds to a political power” (p. 9). Social movements need less planning, promotion, and organization to be successful. All they really need is a powerful motivating factor to spark mobilization. Propaganda can easily fill this role: “The pattern begins with an action of propaganda through the sails of technological devices, which is followed by supportive comments on the propaganda, and ends in mass mobilization for a real social movement for a purpose” (p. 4).

Although there is obvious good in breaking the government’s former monopoly on propaganda and in tools like social media making organizing and protesting easier than ever, there’s also the possibility for increased disinformation, chaos, and abuse. Ahyar and Alfitri consider the example of Basuki Tjahaya Purnama (also called Ahok), the former Jakarta governor who was imprisoned for blasphemy after a misleadingly edited video of one of his speeches went viral, causing controversy among Islamic communities in Indonesia. The doctored video functioned as propaganda, perfectly matching Ahyar and Alfitri’s definition of propaganda as “attempts to shape influence, change, and control the attitudes and opinions of a person or group for a particular purpose or to be brought in a particular direction” (p. 11). That propaganda spread rapidly through social media, acting as the spark that mobilized thousands of people to take to the streets in protests that were easily and spontaneously planned with improved technology and communication. Ahok’s imprisonment serves as testimony to the power and changed nature of propaganda and social movement, and to the danger that these powerful tools have when they are used rapidly and with little opportunity for oversight, consideration, and fact-checking.

Paper:

Ahyar, M & Alfitri. (2019) ‘Aksi Bela Islam: Islamic clicktivism and the new authority of religious propaganda in the millennial age in Indonesia’, Indonesian Journal of Islam and Muslim Societies, 9(i), pp. 1–29.

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Countering Terrorist Narratives: Winning the Hearts and Minds of Indonesian Millennials

Narratives are powerful because they’re easy to follow. Factual information and research might provide someone with all of the pieces, but a well-crafted narrative presents itself as an already completed puzzle. Ansis (2018) discusses the narratives that terrorists and extremists use to recruit new members, and how those narratives can be shaped into convincing propaganda that is easily disseminated through social media, focusing primarily on the recruitment of young Indonesians and responses from the Indonesian government. Islamic extremist narratives give followers a consistent worldview, as well as a clearly defined role and purpose within that worldview. Once a follower has accepted extremist narratives, it’s difficult to counter them.

Islamic extremist groups build their narratives on social media the same way many use social media- consistent branding and plenty of selfies. Ansis says, “Many of the selfie photos of young jihadists express their happiness. They smile and carry weapons. The jihadists use this strategy to give a picture that they are powerful and own many weapons” (p. 196). Again, following pretty standard social media manipulation tactics, extremists can deceive followers. Ansis continues, “They may only have a few weapons and ask the jihadists to take turns taking selfie photos carrying the gun” (p. 196). They also use catchphrases. Ansis identifies the phrase “You Only Die Once” or “YODO,” (p. 193) a clear derivative of the popular hashtag #yolo. 

 Ansis’s examples of jidhadist recruiting, specifically her analysis of the film Jihad Selfie, reveal the targeted nature of their recruiting efforts. Extremists’s success isn’t from pouring money into Facebook advertisements; it’s from using social media to talk to vulnerable individuals. There seems to be more to gain from putting significant resources towards the small number of individuals who are able to be flipped than there is in mass recruitment tactics that will fall largely on deaf ears. Again, using social media for this kind of targeted advertising isn’t exclusive to jidhadist groups. Cambridge Analytica’s use of highly targeted advertising has caused outrage worldwide. 

Indonesia has taken several steps to attempt to counter extremist propaganda online, largely in the form of websites offering counter-narratives and promoting peacefulness (p. 202). However, it’s unclear how effective this approach can be. Ansis describes how jidhadists’ use of social media makes them look “cool,” according to former recruits, because of their handling of weapons and the interactions their post get from Muslim women (p. 197). If the appeal of jidhadist’s propaganda comes down to cool factor, it’s really difficult to imagine the government successfully creating something that will actually read as cool to young people. 

The weakest point of Ansis’s analysis comes from her failure to interrogate the term “lone wolf” terrorists. She points out, “Unlike in the past when a terrorist was defined as someone who completed a long process of training and indoctrination through a terrorist group, the lone wolf terrorists are not tied to any terrorist network and have gotten inspiration through the internet,” (p. 195) yet fails to connect that this inspiration through the Internet is often from interacting with content from terrorist networks. 

Paper:

Anis, E. Z. (2018). Countering Terrorist Narratives: Winning the Hearts and Minds of Indonesian Millennials. KnE Social Sciences & Humanities, 2018, 189.

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Government Social Media in Indonesia: Just Another Information Dissemination Tool

No matter how much Mark Zuckerberg promises that the goal of Facebook has always been to “connect” the world, it’s increasingly clear that social media might not actually be the most effective tool towards accomplishing that goal. Though social media sties like Facebook and Twitter can make two-way communication between entities easier from a logistical standpoint, scholars remain divided on whether or not social media has been able to live up to possibilities in the political realm.

Idris (2018) examines this possibility for two-way communication between government entities and individuals in Indonesia using social media, finding that two-way communication is much more of a social media ideal than a reality. She specifically looks at two Indonesian government agencies’ social media presences, using social network analysis to determine how and when they interacted with other social media users. For the most part, it turns out they don’t. She says, “…the Indonesian government mostly used social media to disseminate governmental information, to dominate social media conversation, and to amplify governmental messages… Thus, advanced communication technology was not used to transform the government to become more engaging and transparent” (p. 352). Basically, just because social media creates the opportunity for dialogue between governments and citizens, doesn’t ensure that the governments reads, considers, or acknowledges citizens’ responses.

Without two-way communication, there is little or no difference between government information and PR campaigns disseminated on social media and propaganda (p. 338). However, the use of social media allows governments to maintain the illusion of increased communication with citizens while actually perfecting their propagandistic techniques. When communicating directly on social media, a government can effectively bypass traditional media, allowing them to release their content exactly as they see fit, keeping journalistic scrutiny out of their initial message. They can also manipulate social media algorithms to amplify their own content, using nothing more than networks of government social media accounts. Idris describes President Widodo’s network of governmental social media accounts’ objective as “to counter negative opinions about the government and at the same time make government information go viral” (p. 350). Though downright measly compared to something like Russian bot networks, these networks of official government accounts can be enough to spread information and shape conversation. Governments using social media for information dissemination also have the opportunity to perfectly test and reshape their messages in real time. Both the Obama and Trump campaigns in the U.S. saw impressive results using methods like A/B testing to craft and recraft their social media advertisements with incredible precision (Bashyakarla, 2019).

Social media makes a lot of things possible that were not before. This includes both increased transparency and easier back and forth communication between governments and citizens, but also easier dissemination of perfectly-crafted propaganda. Idris makes it clear which of these aims the Indonesia government is pursing.

Paper

Idris, I. K. (2018). Government social media in Indonesia: Just another information dissemination tool. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 34(4), 337–356. https://doi.org/10.17576/JKMJC-2018-3404-20

Additional References

Bashyakarla, V. (2019). A/B Testing: Experiments in campaign messaging. Retrieved from https://ourdataourselves.tacticaltech.org/posts/ab-testing

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Social Media and Politics in Indonesia

Johansson (2016) gives a solid background to the state of media in Indonesia, both traditional and digital. He explains how a narrowly controlled traditional media in a democracy as new as Indonesia created favorable conditions for social media to break through and disrupt the spread of information, focusing largely on the potential for positive change.

He describes issues with Indonesia’s print and television media, starting with their vulnerability to being completely controlled by just a few elite members of society, i.e. elite capture or media capture. He elaborates on how much of Indonesia’s media is owned or influenced by figures tied to politics, including direct family members of politicians (p. 17). He also describes the rise of media conglomerates. In short, he describes a media ecosystem in which power is held by very few people with ties to other powerful people, working towards a future with less and less competition, all of which can contribute to increased media bias.

Next, he explains the culture of social media in Indonesia, and the effect it’s had on political messaging and campaigning. Social media is wildly popular in Indonesia, with users spending an average of 2.9 hours on social media each day, compared to just 1.7 hours of use in the United States (p. 25). Social media is an attractive place for political messaging not only because of its popularity, but also due to “the cost of campaigning on a steady increase, limited political financing, problems with money politics and the limits of traditional media” (p. 25). Johansson also touches on social media strategies from the 2014 presidential election, explaining that Jokowi’s use of a massive volunteer network coordinating and posting on social media ultimately won out over Prabowo’s smaller and more professional social media team.

Although Johansson mentions propaganda only sparingly, his paper works as a useful, fairly comprehensive account of the media landscape in Indonesia, presently as well as historically. His few words on propaganda are also useful, explaining how media exists primarily as a mode of disseminating propaganda when being viewed from the lens of framing theory, among others. Finally, he warns of how effective political messaging on social media may be dangerous, and how it can “result in an ever-increasing difficulty for citizens to differentiate between news, propaganda, and opinions” (p. 37).

Paper:

Johansson, Anders C., 2016. “Social Media and Politics in Indonesia,” Stockholm School of Economics Asia Working Paper Series 2016-42, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm China Economic Research Institute.