The Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Brawijaya (FISIP UB) is conducting digital literacy outreach to prevent hoaxes. This activity was initiated by UB Government Science lecturers, Ruth Agnesia Sembiring S.Sos., MA and Mochammad Alexander Mujiburrohman S.IP., M.IP which was carried out at SMA Negeri 7 Malang City.
Ruth Agnesia revealed that currently almost 30 million children and teenagers in Indonesia are internet users.
“There are five things that internet users often access in Indonesia, such as text chat, social media, reading news, searching for data and information, and streaming video,” he said, Wednesday (13/9/2023).
However, according to Ruth Agnesia, internet users, especially among the younger generation, do not yet know that the internet is like a double-edged sword that can have both positive and negative impacts on its users.
“That’s why digital literacy needs to be intensified among all internet users, especially the younger generation who are still vulnerable to receiving any information from the internet raw, especially in this year which is a political year, they will definitely receive any news easily,” she continued.
At SMAN 7 Malang City, Ruth said that her team was equipping all participants who are a generation of active internet users through digital literacy so that they would not easily accept hoaxes during the political year.
“Digital literacy is important because the younger generation, especially female students who are still in high school, sometimes still cannot sort and choose which information can be said to be valid or not,” he said.
“So, most of them spread information for free or are not filtered. “Especially approaching the 2024 democratic elections, there will definitely be a lot of hoaxes about politics,” continued Ruth Agnesia.
She said that if they are not equipped with digital literacy, there will be an increasing number of generations who are not wise in using the internet, for example, cyber bullying, cyber crime, porn, plagiarism, even committing radical acts.
“We as the younger generation who have the privilege of being wise internet users, must always double-check all the information we receive and ensure that the news is valid, one of which is checking via turnbackhoax.id,” concluded Ruth.
The enthusiasm of the participants was seen during the discussion and question and answer sessions. Some of them asked questions and shared interesting experiences as internet users when they received hoax information. (*/OKY/UB PR/ Trans. Iir)
