How cyber troops work 

In our research, cyber troops can be defined as a network of buzzers, influencers, coordinators and content creators who work together to influence public opinion on social media. Our research found that all levels of the cyber troops receive material rewards, except for celebrities.

In brief, it can be explained that buzzers are frontline troops who generally use fake accounts to propagate a particular narrative. Sometimes they upload content, sometimes they retweet (or reply to) tweets from an influencer (celebrity). Meanwhile, content creators are part of the troops in charge of preparing the materials, memes and hashtags that the buzzers share.

They can predict what kind of posts will go viral using their knowledge and intuition about politics and public opinion formation. Both the buzzers and content creators are recruited by a coordinator who is in touch with the ‘clients’ who fund the cyber troop’s activities. Meanwhile, celebrities are people who use their accounts to support certain political policies out of idealism.

How did the cyber troop manipulate public opinion to support the revision of the KPK Law on September 17, 2019? Our research found at least three characteristics of social media propaganda at the time.

First, there was a tsunami of conversations on social media ahead of the ratification of a policy with an unusually large volume. Our research monitoring shows that on September 10-17, 2019, there were more than half a million conversations on various social media platforms, especially Twitter.

Half a million conversations on one topic in such a short period is certainly not unusual. What’s more, the tsunami of conversations was for a fairly heavy issue: the revision of the law. This is different, for example, from the case involving the artist, which was followed by a relatively wide range of people.

The attempt to spread the content was done in other unusual ways such as the “GiveAway” quiz.

Second, there is an effort to deliberately create content on social media accompanied by massive dissemination in order to become viral and a trending topic. In the run-up to the revision of the KPK Law, there were viral posts on social media in the form of memes, images, or hashtags.

Attempts to spread the content were made in other unusual ways, such as a “GiveAway” quiz where virtual citizens would get Rp 50,000 credit for two people who wanted to make any status, but with the hashtag #KPKPATUHAturan. This was to put pressure on the KPK, whose commissioners rejected the revision, to comply with the revision. In this case, the quiz proved successful as the hashtag #KPKPATUHAtturan was tweeted 18,043 times.

Third, there is the use of identity politics to attract public sentiment. Still fresh in our memories, one of the contents that went viral at the time was an image of an organizational structure that explained how some KPK investigators and commissioners were related to the Taliban organization. Such a sophisticated image certainly requires experts to produce it.

On those days, Twitter was also filled with the hashtag #KPKdanTaliban. Our research shows that 16,521 tweets were using the hashtag. The aim was clearly to lead public opinion as if the KPK was a den of radical Islamic groups, which has never been proven to this day.

Identity sentiment as a trigger

From the various patterns above, it seems that the use of identity issues is the most powerful triggering factor in influencing public opinion. Ong and Cabanes (2020) note that social media propaganda will be able to influence public opinion when it resonates with social issues and aspirations, especially those that are not sufficiently recognized and mentioned by the mainstream media.

The descriptions of the two scholars are relevant to the situation in Indonesia where political elites have used religious identity-based sentiments in three elections: the 2014 General Election, the 2017 Jakarta Governor Election, and the 2019 General Election which successfully created political polarization. For at least the last five years, various political scientists have warned against the threat of political polarization. Identity-based political polarization can have several negative impacts on democratic governance, including the erosion of democratic institutions and norms, in addition to deepening social divisions.

In Indonesia, identity-based political polarization has also led to social media divisions in pejorative terms: cebong and kampret, and later kadrun. If cebong refers to groups that support the government, kampret or kadrun refers to hardline Islamic groups that are always suspicious of anything the government does.

In a situation of affective political polarization, politics is no longer just a struggle for power, but also emotions and desires to fulfil ego and even survival. The pejorative labelling using animal names that took place in Indonesia shows the truth of this theory. Here, the division between us and them reaches an extreme point. Under these circumstances, the judgment of right or wrong is no longer about facts or evidence, but more about whether it is postulated by our group or their group.

Here we understand why the propaganda of the existence of Taliban or hardline Islamic groups within the KPK has been successful. In our research findings, the hashtags KPK and Taliban have successfully influenced the agenda-setting of the mainstream media, which amplified them in over 250 news reports.

Moreover, it should be suspected that the labelling of hardline Islam also affects general public sentiment. A survey published in Harian Kompas on September 16, 2019, found that the majority of the public (44.9 per cent) supported the revision of the KPK Law far higher than those who rejected it (39.9 per cent).

Since its inception, the KPK has undergone numerous attempts to weaken it in various forms: the review of some or all articles of the KPK law by the Constitutional Court, the House of Representatives right of inquiry that was issued shortly after the anti-graft agency investigated the electronic ID card corruption case, and the criminalization of its members that led to the Cicak vs Crocodile Volume I, II, and III cases. Revision of the KPK Law has also been attempted many times. The first revision attempt occurred in 2010, which was then repeated in 2012, 2015, and 2017.

In many countries, the manipulation of public opinion by producing disinformation has been proven to threaten the quality of democracy.

However, in those years, trust in the KPK was still very high and any attempt to weaken the KPK was always met with public opposition. It was only in 2019 that the revision of the KPK Law received such massive public support. Here, affective polarization arising from identity sentiments has obscured the fact that the anti-graft agency has performed very well in its efforts to eradicate corruption.

Our research shows that the manipulation of public opinion by utilizing identity sentiments on social media did not only occur in the weakening of the KPK but also the 2019 Presidential Election. Likely, the same pattern will also be practised in the 2024 elections. Here, recognizing the pattern of public opinion manipulation is important to increase our awareness. In various countries, manipulation of public opinion that produces various disinformation has been proven to threaten the quality of democracy.

(Wijayanto, Lecturer of Digital Politics and Democracy at Universitas Diponegoro; Director of the Center for Media and Democracy at the Institute for Research, Education and Information on Social Economy (LP3ES); Chair of the Presidium of the National Civil Society Coalition for Democratization and Moderation of Indonesian Cyberspace (Koalisi Damai))

Source: kompas.id

Editor: YOVITA ARIKA