Cyber police pose a risk to Indonesia’s democratic system, specifically since it could make people hesitant to express their aspirations, according to Institute for Social and Economic Research, Education, and Information Indonesia’s (LP3ES’) Executive Director.

“They feel a lot of pressure when they want to express their opinions,” Nursahid said at a public discussion titled “Politics, Media, and Democracy Year End Report” broadcast on Twitter Space on Sunday evening.

Quoted from the Cyber Patrol official website, Directorate of Cyber Crime (Dittipidsiber) is a task force under the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) tasked with conducting law enforcement against cybercrimes.

Several types of cybercrimes that the task force handles, specifically concerning freedom of speech, are online defamation and hate speech.

Nursahid deemed that the scope of online defamation and hate speech is too broad, thereby making the people hesitant in expressing their opinions in the form of critique on social media.

“Almost 120 people received a warning regarding the contents that they had published on social media during the second quarter of 2021,” he remarked.

These incidents made several social media users reluctant in expressing their opinions in the cyber world.

The impact of this pressure is that it lowers the people’s confidence to voice their aspirations, which could affect the rate of public participation in stating views concerning various government policies.

Hence, the cyber or virtual police should receive further review in order to not give a false impression that there is a restriction to civil freedom in stating opinions in the social media space, Nursahid said.

Source: Antara News