Stuff, New Zealand’s biggest independently owned news business, today announced it will stop sharing content to X (formerly Twitter), effective immediately.

A media statement said that decision followed Stuff’s increasing concerns about the volume of mis- and disinformation being shared, and the “damaging behaviour being exhibited on and enabled by the platform”.

All Stuff brands including stuff.co.nz, and publishing mastheads brands The Post, The Press and Waikato Times will no longer post on X, with the exception of stories that are of urgent public interest — such as health and safety emergencies, said the statement.

Stuff will also publish these stories on Neighbourly, to reach communities fast and with hyper-local information.

The following message was sent to all staff from CEO Laura Maxwell:

Trusted storytelling
“When Stuff returned to New Zealand ownership in 2020, we set growth in public trust as a key measure of success. Three years on, our mission is to grow our business through trusted storytelling and experiences that make Aotearoa New Zealand a better place,” she said.

“As a business we have made the decision that X, formerly known as Twitter, does not contribute to our mission.

“We are increasingly concerned about the volume of mis- and dis-information being shared on the platform, and the damaging behaviours we have observed, and experienced.

“So, as of today, we will stop sharing our content on X. An exception to this will be stories that are of urgent public interest, such as health and safety emergencies. We will also publish these stories on Neighbourly.

“We also encourage you all to consider how much you personally engage with X, if at all. The platform is diametrically opposed to our own values, as outlined in our Editorial Code of Practice and Ethics. It deliberately and actively seeks to undermine the value of our journalism.

“We are aware many of you might use X for news gathering and as a way to share information with others. However, as a company that values truth and trust, this platform is no longer a tool for us.

“As many of you know, this is not the first time Stuff has taken such a stance.

“In July 2020, Stuff paused posting activity on Facebook. The move built on the decision to stop paid advertising on Facebook in 2019, following the live streaming and widespread dissemination of footage of the Christchurch mosque shootings on the platform. We will also continue to assess our use of other social platforms.

“As New Zealand’s biggest news organisation, we benefit from a loyal audience, who engage with us every single day on our platforms, our papers, magazines and at our events.

“As restless creators, our innovation mindset is enduring and so we’ll continue to innovate and invest in our platforms to deliver high-quality, trustworthy journalism that is relevant and reflective of Aotearoa.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Indonesia has protested to the Fiji government after Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka met with a Papuan independence leader in a morale boost for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, reports Benar News.

Prime Minister Rabuka, who was elected in December, also said he would support Papuan membership in the UN-recognised organisation Melanesian Spearhead Group.

Fiji’s previous government for 16 years and Papua’s neighbour, Papua New Guinea, have blocked such a membership in a bid to maintain good relations with Indonesia.

The meeting between Rabuka and exiled Benny Wenda, president of the London-based ULMWP that seeks independence from Indonesia, took place at a Pacific Islands Forum “unity” summit in the Fijian town of Nadi last week.

On Tuesday, Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Indonesia had sent a diplomatic note to Fiji.

“Indonesia expressed deep disappointment over the Fiji PM’s meeting with someone who unilaterally claimed to represent the Papuan people in Indonesia,” he said.

The United States and Australia are seeking closer security ties with Indonesia to counter China’s influence in the region, says Benar News.

Morning Star flag
Rabuka’s social media accounts posted a photo of him smiling while meeting Wenda and wearing a noken — a traditional string bag emblazoned with the Morning Star flag, the symbol of the Papua independence movement that is banned in Indonesia.

Rabuka’s Twitter account said he would support the ULMWP gaining full Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) membership “because they are Melanesians” of the Pacific.

Yes, we will support them [United Liberation Movement for West Papua] because they are Melanesians. I am more hopeful [ULMWP gaining full MSG membership]. I am not taking it for granted. The dynamics may have changed slightly but the principles are the same. pic.twitter.com/9J8qpAVhak

— Sitiveni Rabuka (@slrabuka) February 23, 2023

The Papua region is known as West Papua among people in Pacific island countries and also among activists supporting independence.

Documented and alleged killings and abuses by Indonesian military and police, from the 1960s until the present day — along with impunity and the exploitation of the region’s natural resources and widespread poverty — have fuelled local resentment against Indonesian rule, Benar News reports.

“Deploying aid and technical assistance to small island states scattered across the Pacific ocean, Indonesia has in recent years sought to neutralise criticism from some of those nations of its rule in Papua,” said the news service.

While Benar News noted that Jakarta’s assistance was small relative to long-standing donors such as Australia it was still significant, including funding the F$4 million (US$1.9 million) reconstruction of two boarding school dormitories destroyed by a tropical cyclone.

The MSG comprises Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of the indigenous Kanak independence movement in French-ruled New Caledonia. Indonesia is an associate member and the ULMWP is an observer.

The group’s next meeting in July is in the capital Port Vila of Vanuatu, traditionally a strong supporter of West Papuan independence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new study suggests that the news media’s tanking levels of public trust may be made worse merely by association with social media.

The study, released this month by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, has exposed gaps between trust in news via conventional delivery and the same thing consumed via social media.

It doesn’t matter whether people use social media or not: Levels of trust is lower if they simply associate news with the platforms.

The gap varies between platforms and between countries but the overall finding is that levels of trust in news on social media, search engines, and messaging apps is consistently lower than audience trust in information in the news media more generally.

And our media is becoming more and more associated with social media.

Many of the country’s main news outlets have done deals with Google to appear on its Google News platform. Click on the app and you’ll see stories from Stuff, Newshub, New Zealand Herald and NewstalkZB, Radio New Zealand, Television New Zealand, Newsroom, and the Otago Daily Times.

NZME has brokered a deal with Facebook for the use of content, and other publishers are using the Commerce Commission in the hope of leveling the negotiating playing field.

Split between north and south
The Reuters study (part of the institute’s on-going research into trust in the media) was a split between north and south. The four countries surveyed were the United Kingdom, the United States, India, and Brazil. Two thousand people were surveyed in each country and covered seven platforms: Facebook, Google, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube.

New Zealand use of social media more closely follows that of the United States and the United Kingdom than India and Brazil so the data relating to those two nations are quoted here. The full results can be found here.

Google showed the smallest gap between platform and general trust in news. It was only one percentage point behind in Britain where 53 percent express general trust in news. In the US, where the general trust level sits at 49 percent, Google was actually four percentage points ahead.

The same could not be said for other platforms.

To ease the calculation, we’ll say roughly 50 percent of respondents in both countries express trust in news in general. Contrast that with news on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which score in the mid to high twenties.

TikTok news is trusted by only 20 percent on those surveyed, the same number as WhatsApp rates in the United States (the UK is higher on 29 percent).

Only YouTube emerged from the twenties, with its news content being rated by 33 percent in Britain and 40 percent in the United States.

Complex reasons
The reasons for these gaps in perception of news on social media are complex. This is due in part to the fact that social media serves many different purposes for many different users.

News is only a small part of the interchange that occurs. The study shows that no more than a third use Google or Facebook for daily access to news, with other platforms below 20 percent, and on TikTok only 11 percent.

Large portions of the public, in fact, do not use social media platforms at all (although this does not stop them having opinions about them in the survey). Usage varies between Britain and America but a quarter to a third never use Facebook, Google or YouTube and half to three quarters do not use the remaining platforms.

Previous Reuters research has shown levels of trust in news are higher in those who access it on a regular basis. Distrust is highest among those who have least contact with news and with social platforms. This is confirmed by the latest survey.

News organisations may take some comfort from the findings that young people are more trusting of news on social platforms than older people. The gap is huge in some cases.

An average 14 percent of Americans and Britons over 55 trust news on Facebook. That rises to 40 percent among those under 35. The gap for Google is similar and even greater on other platforms.

News aside, however, people have generally positive views of platforms. More than two-thirds give Google a tick and almost as many give the thumbs-up to YouTube. Both are seen as the best platforms on which learn new things.

Facebook doesn’t fare so well
Facebook does not fare quite so well but at 40-45 percent positive rating, while fewer than a third feel positively about Twitter and TikTok.

In spite of these warm fuzzies, however, the surveys reveal “big problems”, particularly with Facebook.

Almost two-thirds of respondents blame Facebook for propagating false or misleading information and it is also seen as the worst culprit in on-platform harassment, irresponsible use of personal data, prioritising political views, and censoring content.

Although opinions expressed by non-users has complicated the Reuters study, both users and no-users express similar views when it comes to these problems. For example, the proportion of Facebook users that say false or misleading information is a problem on the platform (63 percent) is virtually the same as those who say it is in the overall sample.

The study, which includes an even wider range of variables than are included here, attempts to correlate platform usage and ideas about journalism. After all, it is on such platforms — and from the mouths of some politicians — that users encounter discussions about journalism and criticism of journalists.

The survey asked specific questions about journalists. Half the respondents thought journalists try to manipulate the public to serve the agendas of powerful politicians and care more about getting attention than reporting the facts.

Forty percent thought journalists were careless in what they reported, and a slightly higher proportion thought they were only in it for the money.

Criticism of journalism
The researchers then attempted to identify where and how criticism of journalism is encountered. Twitter users are most likely to encounter it. In the United States almost half said they often see criticism of media there and the UK is not far behind.

More than 40 percent of Facebook and Google users in America encounter it and a third of British users of those two platforms say they see it there. Other (newer) platforms have even higher incidences.

So that is where the criticism of journalists is propagated, but who is doing the criticising? Almost half those surveyed in the United States pointed the finger at politicians and political parties, although a similar number also say the hear it from “ordinary people”.

The figures are slightly lower in the UK but around a third identify political or government sources.

The survey also asked whether other public figures were responsible for criticism of journalists. Celebrities and activists figure in around a third of responses but so, too, do journalists themselves.

The surveys also give some pointers about the relative importance of “clicks” or how much attention our newsrooms should give to real-time analytics. The answer is  . . . some.

Respondents were asked to pick the factors that were important in deciding whether they could trust information on online platforms. In both countries fewer than 40 percent said the number of likes or shares were important or very important.

Media source familiarity
Around half paid attention to comments on items but far more important was whether they had heard of the media source. Two thirds were influenced by the tone or language used in headlines and almost 60 percent were influenced by accompanying images.

That finding correlates with another in which respondents were asked who should be responsible for helping to differentiate between trustworthy and untrustworthy content on the internet.

More than two-thirds put that responsibility on media organisations, higher than on tech companies, and significantly higher than on government (although Britons were more inclined toward regulation than their American cousins).

However, if the research proved one thing, it was that the media/social media environment is deeply nuanced and manifests the complexities of human behaviour. The conclusions drawn by the researchers say as much. They leave a couple of important take-aways.

“As a trade-off for expanding reach and scale, newsrooms have often ceded considerable control to these outside companies in terms of how their content is distributed and how often and in what form their work appears on these services.

“Such relationships have been further strained as publishers become increasingly dependent on platforms to reach segments of the public least interested in consuming news through legacy modes, even as platforms themselves have pivoted to serving up other kinds of experiences farther removed from news, recognising that many of their most active users have less interest in such content, especially where politically contentious issues are involved.”

They say the gap they have identified is likely a reflection of this mismatch in audience perceptions about what platforms are for, the kinds of information they get when using the services, and how people think more generally about news media.

“It is possible that the main challenge for news organisations when it comes to building and sustaining audience trust is less about the specific problem of how their journalism is perceived when audiences encounter it online, and more about the broader problem of being seen at all.”

My conclusion
Years ago, we heard the term “News You Can Use” as a response to the challenge of declining newspaper circulation. That was a catchy way of saying “We must be relevant”. The Reuters study is further proof that journalism’s real challenge lies in producing content that ordinary people need to live their daily lives. If that means collating and publishing daily lists of what every supermarket chain is charging for milk, bread, cabbages and potatoes then so be it.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has analysed thousands of suspicious tweets posted in 2021 relating to the Indonesian region of West Papua and assessed that they are inauthentic and were crafted to promote the policies and activities of the Indonesian government while condemning opponents such as Papuan pro-independence activists.

This work continues ASPI’s research collaboration with Twitter focusing on information manipulation in the Indo-Pacific to encourage transparency around these activities and norms of behaviour that are conducive to open democracies in the region.

It follows our August 24 analysis of a dataset made up of thousands of tweets relating to developments in Indonesia in late 2020, which Twitter had removed for breaching its platform manipulation and spam policies.

This report on Papua focuses on similar Twitter activity from late February to late July 2021 that relates to developments in and about Indonesia’s easternmost region.

This four-month period was noteworthy for several serious security incidents as well as an array of state-supported activities and events in the Papua region, then made up of the provinces of West Papua and Papua.

These incidents were among many related to the long-running pro-independence conflict in the region.

A report from Indonesia’s Human Rights Commission detailed 53 violent incidents in 2021 across the Papua region in which 24 people were killed at the hands of both security forces and the armed wing of the Free Papua Organisation (OPM) separatist movement, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB).

‘Armed criminal group’
Jakarta normally referred to this group by the acronym “KKB”, which stands for “armed criminal group”.

This upsurge in violence followed earlier cases involving multiple deaths. The most notorious took place in December 2018, when TPNPB insurgents reportedly murdered a soldier and at least 16 construction workers working on a part of the Trans-Papua Highway in the Nduga regency of Papua province (official Indonesian sources have put the death toll as high as 31).

The Indonesian government responded by conducting Operation Nemangkawi, a major national police (POLRI) security operation by a taskforce comprising police and military units, including additional troops brought in from outside the province.

The security operation led to bloody clashes, allegations of human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings, and the internal displacement of many thousands of Papuans, hundreds of whom, according to Amnesty International Indonesia, later died of hunger or illness.

Besides anti-insurgency actions, an important component of the operation was the establishment of Binmas Noken Polri, a community policing initiative designed to conduct “humanitarian police missions or operations” and assist “community empowerment” through programmes covering education, agriculture and tourism development.

“Noken” refers to a traditional Papuan bag that indigenous Papuans regard as a symbol of “dignity, civilisation and life”. Binmas Noken Polri was initiated by the then national police chief, Tito Karnavian, the same person who created the recently disbanded, shadowy Red and White Special Task Force highlighted in our August 24 report.

A key development occurred in April 2021 when pro-independence militants killed the regional chief of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) in an ambush. Coming on the back of other murders by independence fighters (including of two teachers alleged to be police spies earlier that month), this prompted the government to declare the KKB in Papua—that is, the TPNPB “and its affiliated organisations”—”terrorists” and President Joko Widodo to order a crackdown on the group.

9 insurgents killed
Nine alleged insurgents were killed shortly afterwards.

In May 2021, hundreds of additional troops from outside Papua deployed to the province, some of which were part of an elite battalion nicknamed “Satan’s forces” that had earned notoriety in earlier conflicts in Indonesia’s Aceh province and Timir-Leste.

During the same month, there were large-scale protests in Papua and elsewhere over the government’s moves to renew and revise the special autonomy law, under which the region had enjoyed particular rights and benefits since 2001.

The protests included demonstrations staged by Papuan activists and students in Jakarta and the Javanese cities of Bandung and Yogyakarta from May 21-24. The revised law was ushered in by Karnavian, who was then (and is still) Indonesia’s Home Affairs Minister.

The period also saw ongoing preparations for the staging of the National Sports Week (PON) in Papua. Delayed by one year because of the covid-19 pandemic, the event eventually was held in October at several specially built venues across the province.

The dataset we analysed represents a diverse collection of thousands of tweets put out under such hashtags as #BinmasNokenPolri, #MenolakLupa (Refuse to forget), #TumpasKKBPapua (Annihilate the Papuan armed criminal group), #PapuaNKRI (Papua unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia), #Papua and #BongkarBiangRusuh (Take apart the culprits of the riots).

Most were overtly political, either associating the Indonesian state with success and public benefits for Papuans or condemning the state’s opponents as criminals, and sometimes doing both in the same tweet.

Papuan Games tweets
Among several tweets under #Papua proclaiming that the province was ready to host the forthcoming PON thanks to Jakarta’s investment in facilities and security, 18 dispatched on June 25 proclaimed: “PAPUA IS READY TO IMPLEMENT PON 2020!!! Papua is safe, peaceful and already prepared to implement PON 2020. So there’s no need to be afraid. Shootings by the KKB … are far from the PON cluster [the various sports facilities] … Therefore everyone #ponpapua #papua”.

Many tweets were clearly aimed at shaping public perceptions of the pro-independence militia and others challenging the state.

Under #MenolakLupa in particular, numerous tweets related to past and contemporary acts of violence by the pro-independence militants. Two sets of tweets from March 22 and 24 that recall the 2018 attack at Nduga are especially noteworthy, in that both injected the term “terrorist” into the armed criminal group moniker that the state had been using hitherto, making it “KKTB”. This was a month before the formal designation of the OPM as a “terrorist” organisation.

As if to stress the OPM’s terrorist nature, subsequent tweets under #MenolakLupa carried through with this loaded terminology. For example, tweets on June 15 stated that in 2017 “KKTB committed sexual violence” against as many as 12 women in two villages in Papua.

A fortnight later, another set of tweets said that in 2018 the “armed terrorist criminal group” had held 14 teachers hostage and had taken turns in raping one of them, causing her “trauma”. Others claimed former pro-independence militants had converted to the cause of the Indonesian unitary state and therefore recognised its sovereignty over Papua.

Some tweets relate directly to specific contemporary events. Examples are flurries of tweets posted on July 24-25 in response to the protests against the special autonomy law’s renewal that highlight the alleged irresponsibility of demonstrations during the pandemic, such as: “Let’s reject the invitation to demo and don’t be easily provoked by irresponsible [malign] people. Stay home and stay healthy always.”

Others are tweets put out under #TumpasKKBPapua after the shooting of the two teachers, such as: “Any religion in the world surely opposes murder or any other such offence, let alone of this teacher. Secure the land of the Bird of Paradise.”

Warning over ‘hoax’ allegations
Other tweets warn Papuans not to succumb to “hoax” allegations about the security forces’ behaviour or other claims by overseas-based spokespeople such as United Liberation Movement of West Papua’s Benny Wenda and Amnesty International human rights lawyer Veronica Koman.

Tweets on April 1 under #PapuaNKRI, for example, warned recipients not to “believe the KKB’s Media Propaganda, let’s be smart and wise in using the media lest we be swayed by fake news.”

Many of the tweets in the dataset are strikingly mundane, with content that state agencies already were, or would have been, publicising openly. A tweet on February 27 under #Papua, for example, announced that the Transport Minister would prioritise the construction of transport infrastructure in the two provinces.

Those under #BinmasNokenPolri often echoed advice that receivers of the tweet could just as easily see on other media, such as POLRI’s official Binmas Noken website.

Some were public announcements about market conditions and community policing events where, for example, people could receive government assistance such as rice, basic items and other support.

Most reflected Binmas Noken’s community engagement purpose, ranging from a series on May 20 promoting a child’s “trauma healing” session with Binmas Noken personnel to another tweeted out on June 20 advising of a badminton contest involving villages and police arranged under the Nemangkawi Task Force.

‘Healthy body, strong spirit’
A further 34 tweets on June 20 advised that “inside a healthy body is a strong spirit”, of which the first nine began with the same broad sentiment expressed in the Latin motto derived from the Roman poet Juvenal, “Mens sana in corpore sano.” (Presumably, after this first group of tweets it dawned on the sender that his or her classical erudition was likely to be lost on indigenous Papuan residents.)

As with the tweets analysed in our August 24 report, based on behavioural patterns within the data, we judge that these tweets are likely to be inauthentic—that is, they were the result of coordinated and covert activity intended to influence public opinion rather than organic expressions by genuine users on the platform.

Without conclusively identifying the actors responsible, we assess that the tweets mirror the Widodo government’s general position on the Papuan region as being an inalienable part of the Indonesian state, as well as the government’s security policies and development agenda in the region.

The vast majority are purposive: by promoting the government’s policies and activities and condemning opponents of those policies (whether pro-independence militia or protesters), the tweets are clearly designed to persuade recipients that the state is providing vital public goods such as security, development and basic support in the face of malignant, hostile forces, and hence that being Indonesian is in their interests.

Dr David Engel is senior analyst on Indonesia in ASPI’s Defence and Strategy Programme. Albert Zhang is an analyst with ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre. His research interests include information and influence operations, and disinformation. Dr Jake Wallis is the Head of Programme, Information Operations and Disinformation with ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre. This article is republished from The Strategist with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It was September 2019, and exiled Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman was enjoying her final days in Australia. Her studies at the Australian National University in Canberra were almost over and all that was left was to wait for graduation day.

One afternoon, Koman’s mobile phone rang. There was an SMS message from a friend in Indonesia.

Her colleague informed her that the police had declared Koman a suspect.

Since August 17, 2019, the Papua issue had been heating up. Racist actions by rogue security personnel against Papuan students in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya had triggered a wave of public anger.

Protest actions were held in several parts of the country, including in Papua. The government even cut internet access in Papua after several of the demonstrations ended in chaos.

In the mist of this critical situation, Koman was actively posting on Twitter, sharing information about the mass movement in Papua.

On September 4, Koman was officially declared a suspect. Police charged her under multiple articles, including the Information and Electronic Transaction (ITE) Law.

ITE law ‘is so rubbery’
Aside from the ITE Law, Koman was also indicted under Law Number 1/1946 on Criminal Regulations, Article 160 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) and Law Number 40/2008 on the Elimination of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination.

“I had thought about what articles would perhaps be used to criminalise me. I strongly suspected it would be the ITE. It turned out to be true, because the ITE is so rubbery,” explained Koman when contacted by CNN Indonesia.

Koman said that it was easy to use the ITE Law to criminalise people. Aside from the “rubber” (catchall) articles, the law does not require much evidence. A screen capture from the internet is enough, and the case can go ahead.

She believes there has been a tendency to use the ITE Law to silence activists over the last few years and she gave several examples of cases in Papua.

Koman said that several Papuan activists were indicted under the ITE Law in 2020. They were accused of committing hate speech, yet the activists only criticised police policy.

“Hate speak must contain SARA [hatred based on ethnic, religion, race or inter-group]. Not for hating the police, that has now become hate speech. The tendency in Papua is like that, the ITE Law’s interpretation of hate speech is like that.

“Yeah, I was confused, upset,” she said laughing.

After being declared a suspect, Koman was also put on the wanted persons list (DPO). Because she had been declared fugitive, she was unable to return to Indonesia after her graduation.

“The problem was, if I got imprisoned, who would report alternative information (about Papua)? If they want to arrest me, then arrest me, but I’m not going to turn myself in,” she said.

Agreement with Widodo
Koman supports President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s recent proposal to revise the catchall articles in the ITE law, saying that the law violates freedom of expression.

She related how she was often teased by her followers on Twitter. They say she wasn’t afraid to criticise the government because she had unwillingly ended up on the DPO. Meanwhile, they are afraid to criticise because of the ITE Law.

For Vero – as Koman is known – there is a serious issue behind the jokes by her followers. She says freedom to express an opinion in Indonesia is violated by the ITE law.

“[Indonesian] citizens don’t have to be imprisoned by the ITE law for their rights to be violated, no. When citizens feel afraid to express themselves, express an opinion, then their rights have already been violated,” said Koman.

Nevertheless, Koman warned that the struggle to uphold democracy will not end with the planned revisions to the ITE Law. She hopes that the public will take part in monitoring steps to improve the quality of democracy in Indonesia.

“Don’t be satisfied because President Jokowi hopes that the move to revise the ITE law will restore democracy. That’s just one step, there’s still a lot of homework to be done to restore democracy”, she said.

Nasib Jerat UU ITE: Jadi DPO dan Tak Bisa Pulang Kampung https://t.co/uMLOLx4zwB

— CNN Indonesia (@CNNIndonesia) February 19, 2021

Waiting for Widodo’s ‘seriousness’
Many are now waiting for Widodo to demonstrate his seriousness in abolishing the catchall articles in the ITE law. So far he has asked Indonesian police chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo to draft guidelines on interpreting the law.

“All that it needs is political will. Does he want to do it or not, or is it just lip service?” asked Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) chairperson Asfinawati when contacted by CNN Indonesia.

According to data released by the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet), the catcall articles in the law which need to be abolished include Article 26 Paragraph (3), Article 27 Paragraph (1), Article 27 Paragraph (3), Article 28 Paragraph (2), Article 29, Article 36, Article 40 Paragraph (2) a, Article 40 Paragraph (2) b, and Article 45 Paragraph (3).

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Nasib Jerat UU ITE: Jadi DPO dan Tak Bisa Pulang Kampung”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Terrorism, political extremism, Donald Trump, social media and the phenomenon of “cancel culture” are confronting journalists with a range of agonising free-speech dilemmas to which there are no easy answers.

Do they allow a president of the United States to use their platforms to falsely and provocatively claim the election he has just lost was stolen from him?

How do they cover the activities and rhetoric of political extremists without giving oxygen to race hate and civil insurrection?

How do they integrate news-making social media material into their own content, when it is also hateful or a threat to the civil peace?

Should journalists engage in, or take a stand against, “cancel culture”?

How should editors respond to the “assassin’s veto”, when extremists threaten to kill those who publish content that offends their culture or religion?

The West has experienced concrete examples of all these in recent years. In the US, many of them became pressing during the Trump presidency.

Lying and endangering civil peace
When five of the big US television networks cut away from former President Trump’s White House press conference on November 6 after he claimed the election had been stolen, they did so on the grounds that he was lying and endangering civil peace.

Silencing the president was an extraordinary step, since it is the job of the media to tell people what is going on, hold public officials to account, and uphold the right to free speech. It looked like an abandonment of their role in democratic life.

Against that, television’s acknowledged reach and power imposes a heavy duty not to provide a platform for dangerous speech.

Then on January 6 – two months later to the day – after yet more incitement from Trump, a violent mob laid siege to the Capitol and five people lost their lives. The networks’ decision looked prescient.

They had acted on the principle that a clear and present danger to civil peace, based on credible evidence, should be prioritised over commitments to informing the public, holding public officials to account and freedom of speech.

This case also raised a further dilemma. Even if the danger to peace did not exist, should journalists just go on reporting – or broadcasting – known lies, even when they come from the president of the United States?

Newspaper editors and producers of pre-recorded radio and television content have the time to report lies while simultaneously calling them out as lies. Live radio and television do not. The words are out and the damage is done.

So the medium, the nature and size of the risk, how the informational and accountability functions of journalism are prioritised against the risk, and the free-speech imperative all play into these decisions.

Similar considerations arise in respect of reporting political extremism.

The ABC’s Four Corners programme is about to embark on a story about the alt-right in the US. Having advertised this in a promotional tweet, the ABC received some social media blow-back raising the question of why it would give oxygen to these groups.

The influence of the alt-right on Western politics is a matter of real public interest because of the way it shapes political rhetoric and policy responses, particular on race and immigration.

To not report on this phenomenon because it pursues a morally reprehensible ideology would be to fail the ethical obligation of journalism to tell the community about the important things that are going on in the world.

It is not a question of whether to report, but how.

The Four Corners programme will not be live to air. There will be opportunity for judicious editing. Journalists are under no obligation to report everything they are told. In fact they almost never do.

Motive matters
Whether the decision to omit is censorship comes down to motive: is it censorship to omit hate speech or incitement to violence? No. Because the reporter doesn’t agree with it? Yes.

Integrating social media content into professional mass media news presents all these complexities and one more: what is called the news value of “virality”.

Does the fact something has gone viral on social media make it news? For the more responsible professional mass media, something more will usually be needed.

Does the subject matter affect large numbers of people? Is it inherently significant in some way? Does it involve some person who is in a position of authority or public trust?

Trump’s use of Twitter was an exploitation of these decision-rules, but did not invalidate them.

Social media is also the means by which “cancel culture” works. It enables large numbers of people to join a chorus of condemnation against someone for something they have said or done.

It also puts pressure on institutions such as universities or media outlets to shun them.

How voiceless can exert influence
It has become a means by which the otherwise powerless or voiceless can exert influence over people or organisations that would otherwise be beyond their reach.

There are those who are worried about the effects on free speech. In July 2020, Harper’s magazine published a letter of protest signed by 152 authors, academics, journalists, artists, poets, playwrights and critics.

While applauding the intentions behind “cancel culture” in advancing racial and social justice, they raised their voices against what they saw as a new set of moral attitudes that tended to favour ideological conformity.

In the aftermath of the police killings of black people in 2020 and the law-and-order response of the Trump administration, “cancel culture” began to affect journalism ethics. Some journalists on papers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times began taking public positions against the way their papers were reporting race issues.

It led to a lively debate in the profession about the extent to which moral preferences should shape news decisions. The riposte to those who argued that they should, was: whose moral preferences should prevail?

This was yet another illustration of the complexities surrounding free speech issues arising from the social media phenomenon, the Trump presidency and the combination of the two.

Terrorism added contribution
Terrorism has also added its contribution. Over the decade 2005-2015, what became known as the Danish cartoons confronted journalists and editors with life-and-death decisions.

In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten (Jutland Post) published cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. It was a conscious act of defiance against “the assassin’s veto”, violent threats to free speech by Islamist-jihadis.

In 2009, a Danish-born professor of politics wrote a book, The Cartoons that Shook the World. Yale University Press, which published it, refused to re-publish the cartoons after having taken advice from counter-terrorism experts about the risks.

In November 2011, the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo published an issue called Charia Hebdo, satirically featuring the Prophet as editor. The real editor was placed on an Al-Qaeda hit list and in January 2015, two masked gunmen opened fire on the newspaper office, killing 12 people, including the editor.

The world’s media were confronted with the decision whether to re-publish the cartoons again in defiance of “the assassin’s veto”. Some did, but most – including Jyllands Posten – did not.

The necessary limits of free speech
Free speech is an indispensable civil right under assault from all these forces. But none of the philosophers whose names we immediately associate with free speech have claimed it to be absolute.

The social media platforms, having for years proclaimed themselves extreme libertarians, have in recent times begun to recognise this is indefensible, and strengthened their moderating procedures.

Some of Australia’s senior politicians seem baffled by the issue.

When Twitter shut down Trump’s account, acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack did not seem to know where he stood, saying in one breath it was a violation of free speech to shut down Trump while in the next that Twitter should also take down the false image of an Australian soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan child.

And he is a former country newspaper editor.

This was followed by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s remark that he was “uncomfortable” with the Twitter decision. He quoted Voltaire as saying something Voltaire never said: the famous line that while he disagreed with what someone said, he would defend to the death his right to say it. It was a fabrication put into Voltaire’s mouth by a biographer more than 100 years after his death.

Voltaire, Milton, Spinoza, Locke and Mill, to say nothing of the US Supreme Court, have not regarded free speech as an absolute right.

So while the media face some extremely difficult decisions in today’s operating environment, they do not need to burden themselves with the belief that every decision not to publish is the violation of an inviolable right.

By Dr Denis Muller, senior research fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Amid the chaos in the US Capitol, stoked largely by rhetoric from President Donald Trump, Twitter has locked his account, with 88.7 million followers, for 12 hours.

Facebook and Instagram quickly followed suit, locking Trump’s accounts — with 35.2 million followers and 24.5 million, respectively — for at least two weeks, the remainder of his presidency. This ban was extended from 24 hours.

The locks are the latest effort by social media platforms to clamp down on Trump’s misinformation and baseless claims of election fraud.

They came after Twitter labelled a video posted by Trump and said it posed a “risk of violence”. Twitter removed users’ ability to retweet, like or comment on the post — the first time this has been done.

In the video, Trump told the agitators at the Capitol to go home, but at the same time called them “very special” and said he loved them for disrupting the Congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win.

That tweet has since been taken down for “repeated and severe violations” of Twitter’s civic integrity policy. YouTube and Facebook have also removed copies of the video.

But as people across the world scramble to make sense of what’s going on, one thing stands out: the events that transpired today were not unexpected.

Given the lack of regulation and responsibility shown by platforms over the past few years, it’s fair to say the writing was on the wall.

The real, violent consequences of misinformation
While Trump is no stranger to contentious and even racist remarks on social media, Twitter’s action to lock the president’s account is a first.

The line was arguably crossed by Trump’s implicit incitement of violence and disorder within the halls of the US Capitol itself.

Nevertheless, it would have been a difficult decision for Twitter (and Facebook and Instagram), with several factors at play. Some of these are short-term, such as the immediate potential for further violence.

Then there is the question of whether tighter regulation could further incite rioting Trump supporters by feeding into their theories claiming the existence of a large-scale “deep state” plot against the president. It’s possible.

We are locking President Trump’s Instagram account for 24 hours as well. https://t.co/HpA79eSbMe

— Adam Mosseri ? (@mosseri) January 7, 2021

But a longer-term consideration — and perhaps one at the forefront of the platforms’ priorities — is how these actions will affect their value as commercial assets.

I believe the platforms’ biggest concern is their own bottom line. They are commercial companies legally obliged to pursue profits for shareholders. Commercial imperatives and user engagement are at the forefront of their decisions.

What happens when you censor a Republican president? You can lose a huge chunk of your conservative user base, or upset your shareholders.

Despite what we think of them, or how we might use them, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube aren’t set up in the public interest.

For them, it’s risky to censor a head of state when they know that content is profitable. Doing it involves a complex risk calculus — with priorities being shareholders, the companies’ market value and their reputation.

Walking a tightrope
The platforms’ decisions to not only force the removal of several of Trump’s posts but also to lock his accounts carries enormous potential loss of revenue. It’s a major and irreversible step.

And they are now forced to keep a close eye on one another. If one appears too “strict” in its censorship, it may attract criticism and lose user engagement and ultimately profit. At the same time, if platforms are too loose with their content regulation, they must weather the storm of public critique.

You don’t want to be the last organisation to make the tough decision, but you don’t necessarily want to be the first, either — because then you’re the “trial balloon” who volunteered to potentially harm the bottom line.

For all major platforms, the past few years have presented high stakes. Yet there have been plenty of opportunities to stop the situation snowballing to where it is now.

From Trump’s baseless election fraud claims to his false ideas about the coronavirus, time and again platforms have turned a blind eye to serious cases of mis- and disinformation.

The storming of the Capitol is a logical consequence of what has arguably been a long time coming.

The coronavirus pandemic illustrated this. While Trump was partially censored by Twitter and Facebook for misinformation, the platforms failed to take lasting action to deal with the issue at its core.

In the past, platforms have cited constitutional reasons to justify not censoring politicians. They have claimed a civic duty to give elected officials an unfiltered voice.

This line of argument should have ended with the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, when Trump responded to the killing of an anti-fascism protester by claiming there were “very fine people on both sides”.

There have been good arguments for private companies to not silence elected officials, but all those arguments are predicated on the protection of constitutional governance.

Twitter and Facebook have to cut him off. There are no legitimate equities left and labeling won’t do it. pic.twitter.com/Nji6A4sJum

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) January 6, 2021

An age of QAnon, Proud Boys and neo-Nazis
While there’s no silver bullet for online misinformation and extremist content, there’s also no doubt platforms could have done more in the past that may have prevented the scenes witnessed in Washington DC.

In a crisis, there’s a rush to make sense of everything. But we need only look at what led us to this point. Experts on disinformation have been crying out for platforms to do more to combat disinformation and its growing domestic roots.

Now, in 2021, extremists such as neo-Nazis and QAnon believers no longer have to lurk in the depths of online forums or commit lone acts of violence. Instead, they can violently storm the Capitol.

It would be a cardinal error to not appraise the severity and importance of the neglect that led us here. In some ways, perhaps that’s the biggest lesson we can learn.

This article has been updated to reflect the news that Facebook and Instagram extended their 24 hour ban on President Trump’s accounts.

By Dr Timothy Graham, senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz