Social media and the quality of freedom of expression in Indonesia: Evidence from the field
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Abstract
In recent years, Indonesia has witnessed the rise of social media and its repercussions for the quality of democracy and particularly freedom of expression. Some utopian scholars argue that social media is a liberation technology that improves the quality of freedom, while dystopians believe that it has in fact threatened freedoms as the state has pushed back with severe punishments. This seminar will explore cases from West Sumatra (social media commentary on religion), South Sulawesi (criticism of state officials), Bali (activism against corporations), and Papua (separatist discourses) to discuss how elite actors have responded to increased social media activity directed against them. The discussion will highlight the ambiguity of social media in post-Suharto Indonesia"it has opened up spaces to express opposing political views, but the state has responded by sanctioning expressions of dissent through traditional and non-traditional forms. In most cases, the state has"at the instigation of affected elite actors"criminalised individual dissenters; in other cases, the state has used technological advances to block legitimate expressions of organizational dissent, and in one exceptional case (Papua), the state has imposed a variety of restrictions and repression to crush both individual and organizational dissent. Thus, the more social media is used by dissidents for liberating purposes, the more conservative the posture of the state, the private sector, and an emerging middle class in undermining the quality of freedom of expression.
About the Speaker
Usman Hamid is an MPhil candidate in the Department of Political and Social Change. In 1998, Usman was a student activist from Trisakti University where four students were shot dead"this incident triggered a nationwide protest that toppled the Suharto regime. He subsequently became the coordinator of KontraS, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence. In 2004 Usman was appointed a member of the Presidential Fact-Finding Team that investigated the 2004 murder of prominent human rights defender Munir Said Thalib. He also served as an expert adviser to the International Center for Transitional Justice, Jakarta office, from 2010 until 2012. In 2011 Usman was appointed to the Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development, where he reviewed the policy on Indonesia's Human Rights Nation Plan of Action of 2011€“2014. In 2012 Usman co-founded the Public Virtue Institute and the Indonesian Branch of Change.org, the world's largest online petition platform. He has been a visiting scholar at University of Columbia (2003) and held a fellowship at Nottingham University (2009).