GUEST WRITER

Indonesian Freedom of Press and Digital Safety for the Country's Journalists: Are We Safe Enough?

Firstly let us start by highlighting the current landscape of Indonesian freedom of the press. With over 17,000 islands and 260 million people, Indonesia is one of the world's largest countries and home to the world's most mass media outlets.

As recorded by the Indonesian Press Council (Dewan Pers Indonesia), Indonesia has over 47,000 mass media outlets, with 43.000 of them are categorized as online media platforms.

These figures should ideally be considered a significant improvement of the country's press freedom and diversity of information.

The major shifting within the Indonesian press system

It is globally known that the press system is inextricably linked to and dependent on the political system in which it operates.

In the Indonesian context, the media was under solid-state control until the 1998 Reformation era. That year was influential on the Indonesian media sector and marked as a stepping stone toward the fall of the country's media authoritarianism and the rise of media freedom.

The industry grew at a breakneck speed. As an illustration, there were only 279 print media companies and five private television stations before 1998.

During this reformation era, the government amended the previous law on the press. The government has guaranteed press freedom in Indonesia by introducing a series of laws to reveal the strengthening of civil society and people's rights to information.

Some of the examples are Law Number 39 of 1999 concerning Human Rights, Law Number 40 of 1999 concerning the Press, Law Number 32 of 2002 concerning Broadcasting, Law Number 14 of 2008 concerning Public Information Transparency, and the Law of Electronic Information and Transactions (abbreviated as UU ITE) was enacted in 2008 and the amended version in 2016.

These laws indicated that press freedom is guaranteed as part of the citizens' human rights. As a result, the national press is not subject to media muzzle or bans. Moreover, not even the government can hinder press activities.

Furthermore, based on the RSF (Reporters Without Borders) 2020 World Press Freedom, Indonesia was ranked at number 113 out of 180 countries and considered to have steady improvement through 2005-2020.

The battle continues

However, although the index has ranked Indonesia above other ASEAN member countries, the country still has a big homework. Despite this progress, RSF continues to rate Indonesia's press freedom as inadequate and clustering the country within the red zone.

As further confirmed by the Indonesian Independent Journalists' Association (AJI), the country continues to stay at the red zone cluster because they have not found an effective solution to the challenges.

The high prevalence of violence directed at journalists, both in the physical and digital world, as well as the inadequacy of the Electronic Information and Transactions Law (UU ITE) that can give rise to citizen criminalization, are some of the unresolved challenges.

Subsequently, this leads us to the question, how about the safety of the journalists? Regardless of the Indonesian improvements in the World Press Freedom ranking, unfortunately, the country's journalists are still facing threats where violence against the journalists keeps on growing.

It can be assumed that in terms of safety, journalists in Indonesia are partly safe. In the AJI's 2020 report, assaults on journalists have reached 90 cases, a significant increase from 57 cases last year.

As technologies develop, so do the threats to journalists where they are prone to risks that they would not face in the physical world

The Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI) added that cyberbullying, doxing, and hacking are known as the most common digital intimidations experienced by journalists, particularly those dealing with scandalous and controversial information (e.g., separatism, communism, military/police abuse, and religious-based radicalization issues).

Comparing to the pre-1998 press authoritarian era, the perpetrators of today's threats journalism are perplexing. Due to the anonymity feature of the digital world, the assaults could be executed by anyone, whether they are state-sponsored or non-state actors.

Military, police, religious-based radical groups, or partisan supporters (political buzzers) are examples of possible actors that still threaten the right of the Indonesian journalists to inform.

The Indonesian Cyber Media Association (AMSI) and the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) have urged authorities to conduct thorough investigations into digital assaults on journalists.

Law enforcement on digital safety is immensely challenging due to the absence of specific rules prohibiting the dissemination of journalists' personal information.

While the authorities can use the Indonesian criminal code and the Press Law to prosecute physical attacks on journalists, cases of digital assaults are more difficult to prosecute.

Nonetheless, since the constitution guarantees press freedom, the absence of regulations does not mean that perpetrators of digital assaults on journalists are immune from legal consequences.

The way forward

This is not the time to keep pointing fingers and laying blames. Building digital safety for journalists is a shared responsibility.

Strong coaction between the media, journalists, Press Council, legislators, and law enforcement is required to develop regulations to prevent and respond to increasingly prevalent digital assaults.

The media, associations, and Press Council must also be equally tenacious in their advocacy for law enforcement in cases associated with journalists' offline and online persecutions. For journalists, awareness of digital security needs to be built.

Neglecting cybersecurity and online privacy is a risk that journalists cannot afford. The negligence can put their lives, credibility, sources, and entire careers at risk. Hence, alongside their association, Indonesian journalists must continue to provide and spread the awareness and knowledge of “digital hygiene” to other fellow journalists nationwide.

By having the proper knowledge, journalists can ensure that their operations are watertight, their information is credible, their privacy is protected, and their data is secure.

While for the government, the constitutional promise to guarantee press freedom needs to be enforced more significantly. The government needs to rejuvenate the 22-year-old press protection law, thus enabling it to adapt to the most recent digital phenomenon.

Finally, by having concrete regulatory support from the state, followed by proper safety awareness and digital literacy from the Journalists, they can secure a safer passage to their informational channels prior to venturing into the vast expanse of the internet, with less fear of an unexpected infiltration attack.

This task is no walk in the park, but the struggle for digital safety must be fought for. Ensuring digital safety for everyone is crucial for the country to prove that Indonesia is moving progressively toward a state where civil rights, fundamental political liberties, and press freedom are appreciated and strengthened by a socio-political culture supportive of democratic values.