Public Critics

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) asked the public criticism for his rules.

President Jokowi Challenges The Public To Actively Convey Criticism (voi.id) 

This, to some of Indonesian called as lip service. 

Why?

Because we have Electronic Information and Transactions law (or, UU ITE) that can have loose interpretation, like a rubber. So many people falling victim for this law.

Second, there is a group of Cyber squad enrolled by who knows who that actively defending Jokowi administration policy. They would bully critics that have arguments on the other side. We have a term for these squads: Buzzer RP or BuzzerRp.

According to The Global Disinformation Order2019 Global Inventory of OrganisedSocial Media Manipulation research by Oxford University, buzzers already a common thing used by governments around the world. So, yeah, I think it is normal for Indonesian government to use it also.

My resentment for BuzzerRp is that how they were used incorrectly during the early days of COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, people voicing their sentiment to quarantine and stop flight from foreign country. But, these squads slandered such voice. At the time, they defended Visit Indonesia 2020.

Contrary to that, Vietnam used their buzzer well. They made a campaign to do safe practices. They even featured on John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode. 

Well, since the Arab Springs and the Twitter incident that led to Egypt's revolution, governments all around the world panicked. They tried to govern the Internet. Some uses Pornography laws to impose control. Some tried to do one switch button. Some created a firewall, L4-filter. And so on.

I agree on some degree, especially to defend our nation against a firecracker situation. Firecracker is an Internet move by crackers to disable some infrastructure. It's a Cyber-warfare situation that our country needs to defend against.

However, some parties took it too far to defend the status quo. This makes me sick! It impaired the healthy democracy around the world.

It makes me hesitate on contributing current technology to the government. Will the technology used for our country or to serve political purpose of the status quo? It makes me wonder if someday the technology that I contribute would be used to suppress the minorities.

My hope for Indonesia, UU ITE needs to be reformed. These buzzers need to be in-check. A healthy dose of democracy makes a country strong. We already learned how 32 years of dictatorship led Indonesia to economic downfall.

I don't want my country have that again. EVER.