Lecturer at STIE YPUP Makassar.
Keywords: Disinformation, Literacy, Regulation, Sovereignty.
WIN Media, Opinion – The Indonesian Anti-Defamation Society (Mafindo) recorded 1,593 hoax cases identified from October 2024 to October 2025, with deepfakes and scams as the most concerning trends. Ironically, Indonesia’s digital literacy index in 2025 only reached a score of 3.54 out of 5, meaning it remains in the moderate category and is not evenly distributed.
The main thesis is clear: digital literacy, which has been widely promoted, is merely a temporary palliative, because digital sovereignty demands systemic resistance involving regulation, technological ecosystems, and law enforcement, not merely individual responsibility.
The Limitations of Individual Digital Literacy
The criticism of current literacy approaches is that existing programs often contain only simple tips such as fact-checking and not sharing blindly, which are reactive rather than preventive. In fact, research by Kurniyawan et al. (2026) shows that hoax dissemination patterns follow staged-exponential patterns, cross-platform replication, and recontextualization of authentic content that is difficult for individuals to anticipate.
Literacy also ignores psychological factors: people are more likely to believe hoaxes that align with their confirmation bias and political emotions, so no matter how intelligent a person is, they remain vulnerable. The speed of AI-based hoax production, as demonstrated by Yasin (2025) that AI deepfake content significantly influences misinformation spread on social media X, far exceeds individuals’ manual verification capacity, so individual digital literacy has thus become outdated.
The most blatant example is the hoax before the 2024 Election about ballot papers already punched in Taiwan, which was virally spread by anonymous accounts on social media, and although the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) refuted it with authentic evidence, the narrative was still believed by certain segments of society and spread into closed chat groups. This phenomenon shows that literacy alone is not enough when a hoax has touched ideological sentiments and group identity.
Hoaxes as a Systemic Threat
Hoaxes are not merely misinformation but an ecosystem supported by an industry behind them—including paid buzzers, bot accounts, and organized groups—while digital platforms with algorithms that prioritize provocative and emotional content naturally make hoaxes win in content competition. The impact is systemic: hoaxes threaten social cohesion through SARA issues and identity politics, and disrupt economic stability through fraudulent investments and issues of food scarcity.
The Global Disinformation Index (2024) even places Indonesia as one of the most active disinformation markets in Southeast Asia, with estimated economic losses from digital fraud reaching trillions of rupiah per year. This is a real non-military threat to national sovereignty, as it falls within the domain of Commission I of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR-RI).
Systemic Resistance Solutions
The first pillar of systemic resistance is regulation that favors the public, not corporations. The DPR, especially Commission I, must oversee the Draft Law on Cyber Security and Resilience (KKS), currently under discussion, so that it is not repressive toward ordinary citizens but firm toward actors behind hoaxes.
Regulation must also require transparency of social media platform algorithms so that government and academics can audit the spread of harmful content. As found by Nisa et al. (2025) in the Journal of Communication and Public Policy, countries that successfully suppress hoaxes are those that implement periodic algorithm audit mechanisms.
The second pillar is the active role of campuses and students: not only teaching literacy but creating AI-based hoax detection technology accessible to the public, while students must become cyber guards who actively report harmful content and create data-based counter-narratives. Campuses also need to make digital literacy a compulsory course that is not only theoretical but based on digital advocacy and content investigation practice.
The third pillar is measured law enforcement, focusing on dismantling hoax spreader networks, including intellectual actors and their financiers, not merely pursuing individuals who unintentionally share false information. Law enforcement must also be accompanied by protection for whistleblowers and journalists who expose disinformation networks.
A Collective War
Digital sovereignty will never be achieved if we rely only on individual awareness, because hoaxes are a collective enemy that demands a collective war. It is time for civil society, academics, and the state to sit together in a public forum to design comprehensive policies.
Students as future owners must enter the realm of advocacy, not merely become passive content creators. If territorial sovereignty is guarded with tanks and missiles, then digital sovereignty must be guarded with fair regulation, technology that takes sides, and a collective movement that never tires of fighting lies.