"We ask the police to conduct a thorough investigation into all cases of fake news that have created public confusion," Spokesman of the Prabowo-Sandiaga pair`s National Campaign Team Ahmad Riza Patria said here on Thursday.
Patria stated that from the beginning, he has thought that it is impossible that there have been millions of ballots that have been cast prior to the convening of the upcoming presidential election.
The proliferation of fake news, including a report on seven containers containing millions of voted ballots in favor of the pair of incumbent president Joko Widodo and his running mate, Ma`ruf Amin, has indeed harmed the society, he remarked.
In the case of ballots, he added that the authority for making the ballots belongs to the General Election Commission (KPU). The ballots that have been distributed to the polling booths must again be examined and checked by the authorized persons.
"The ballots that have been distributed to polling booths will again be checked. If the ballots have been marked, they would be regarded as useless," he noted.
The proliferation of fake news, hate speech, and slander has obviously become a serious problem prior to this year`s parliamentary and presidential elections.
In combating the spread of fake news, the East Java police cyber crime unit has shut down several thousands of social media accounts because the users have been found spreading fake news and information on the 2019 Presidential Election.
"We have shut down thousands of social media accounts, including those from the platforms of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, because they spread hoaxes," the East Java Police spokesman, Sen. Coms. Frans Barung Mangera, revealed.
On Thursday alone, the cyber crime unit personnel have so far taken down 32 social media accounts to halt the massive proliferation of hoaxes that are feared to affect those receiving the fake news, he stated.
One of the contents of fake news, proliferated through various social media platforms that had been taken down by the police, was about the existence of around 10 million Chinese citizens in the final voters list (DPT) for the 2019 Presidential Election.
"We categorize the information as fake news," Mangera noted.
Reporting by Imam Budilaksono, Rahmad Nasution
Reporter: Antara
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
Copyright © ANTARA 2019
