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“Together for Peaceful 2024 Elections in Indonesia!”
On 22 June 2023, UNESCO Jakarta held a high-level meeting on “Combatting Hate Speech and Disinformation ahead of the 2024 Indonesian Elections”. The event was organized as part of the Social Media 4 Peace project, funded by the European Union, and also served to commemorate the International Day for Countering Hate Speech.
UNESCO brought together representatives of major platforms in Indonesia, the President’s Executive Office, the Election Supervisory Body, the National Commission on Violence Against Women, the National Human Rights Commission and 12 civil society organizations to reflect on the lessons learned from the 2019 Presidential Elections, discuss the upcoming challenges of effectively monitoring the election-related disinformation and incendiary content, and to identify concrete avenues for multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Conducting elections in the digital age is an extraordinary challenge. We need the government, technology companies and civil society on board, to ensure that electoral campaigning and messaging proceed in a way that curtails the spread of disinformation and allows journalists to carry out their work safely.
In his opening remarks, the Deputy Head of Mission of the European Union to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam, Mr Stéphane Mechati, highlighted the common challenges related to online harmful content faced by Indonesia and the European Union ahead of their respective elections.
The spread of online harmful content, particularly hate speech and disinformation, has become an insidious threat to democracies and social cohesion. All of us have the ultimate responsibility to remain united against disinformation and find the best ways to ensure that citizens can freely express their views and receive information from transparent and pluralistic sources.
The event introduced the Damai Coalition, set up with UNESCO’s support within Social Media 4 Peace, as a strategic partner, which aims to serve as the voice of civil society and an advisory forum to platforms and the government.
The Damai Coalition’s goals are to engage in a transparent and sustained dialogue with platforms and the government, to ensure that content moderation practices and policies in Indonesia are informed by the understanding of the local context and in line with international human rights standards, to conduct evidence-based research and advocate for freedom of expression online as well as to increase digital literacy and awareness among the wider public on these issues.
Made up of 12 independent civil society organizations, the Damai Coalition can mobilize its unique networks and expertise to advise on concrete methodologies for monitoring harmful content online, designing risk assessments for conflict-prone areas and proposing protocols for handling emergency situations among platforms and election management bodies.
The meeting was divided into two parts. The first was a public session which introduced the Damai Coalition and offered key findings from research commissioned by UNESCO to the Center for Digital Society and Article 19 on Indonesia’s legal frameworks addressing online harmful content and the dynamics of social media use and content moderation. The second session was a closed discussion conducted under Chatham House rules to ensure an open environment for all stakeholders to freely share their concerns and suggestions. The representatives of technology companies, including Google, Meta, Twitter, Tik Tok, YouTube and WhatsApp, discussed possible collaboration with Damai Coalition on improving monitoring, early warning and escalation mechanisms for tackling disinformation and hate speech.
To demonstrate a joint commitment, the participants signed the banner entitled “Together for Peaceful 2024 Elections!”. Moving forward, UNESCO will facilitate the follow up process among the stakeholders and give way to concrete initiatives to support freedom of expression and access to information as a public good.
