Empowering Youth to Combat Misinformation

The youth will play a very significant role in the upcoming General Election in Indonesia. There will be 187 million voters, 60 percent of whom are the younger generation. They can be the most vulnerable group to become targets of misinformation.

Therefore, to involve the younger generation in fighting mis and disinformation, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen) collaborated with the United States Embassy in Indonesia to hold a program entitled: Fact Check Training to Fight Misinformation.

The opening session was conducted at MyAmerica, Jakarta, on Monday, 6 November 2023. The speakers were Andari Karina Anom (Communication Lecturer, Binus University International), Bayu Galih (Editor, Cek Fakta Kompas.com), and Fadli Ramadhanil (Program Manager, the Association for Elections and Democracy).

In a democratic context, misinformation can make people confused in determining the right leader, fall into political polarization, and produce hatred towards other groups with different political choices.

However, young people have the potential to fight misinformation. With their abilities as a digital native generation and spending a lot of time on the internet, young people are in an excellent position to fight disinformation.

The program is expected to empower young activists, improve the skills of young users, and meaningfully engage young people in various activities.

Communication Program Binus International also initiates some activities to combat misinformation among youth. Collaborating with the Computer Science and Graphic Design and New Media Program, we launched Project Initiative: Fact Checking and Media Literacy Program.

For the past two years, we have conducted workshops and discussions for students, lecturers, and the public. We also created Clarifact, an application to detect hoaxes, published research papers, and created animation videos as part of the project.

Contributor: Andari Karina Anom

Editor: Andari Karina Anom