We live in a world that is full of digital natives who look to the internet for all the information they could ever desire.
While we have to use a bit of common sense to discern fact from fake news, it also helps to be skeptical of everything you see on social media.
After all, we only see one side of the coin. And whether that side is truly reflective of reality or not, we'll never really know unless we do enough of our own research.
When it comes to a government's approach to social policy, social media is one of the greatest places to start.
But where do we draw the line when social media influencers are paid to promote such policies?
While paid promotions are nothing new among social media influencers (it is their bread and butter of course), being used to perpetuate and promote governmental policies is a bit of a stretch.
According to the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), investigations have revealed that the use of social media influencers to push forward government policies has been in practice since 2017 under the current administration.
And just how much taxpayer money has the Indonesian government spent on this digital tactic?
90.45 billion Indonesian Rupiah, or roughly US$6.1 million, scattered across 40 different influencer programs.
According to the ICW report, the majority of those influencer-allocated funds was spent in 2018, amounting to a whopping US$3.8 million.
In 2020, reports show the Indonesian government has spent over US$648,000 so far – considerably less than previous years, but still taxpayer money spent nonetheless.
But who actually benefited from this influencer 'marketing'?
Using publicly-available data, the report revealed that the Ministry of Information and Communications had spent a total of US$736,311 on four influencers, while the Education and Culture Ministry spent over US$108,800 on 20 influencer programs.
ICW researcher Egi Primayogha stressed the notion that the Indonesian government made use of influencers to not only promote public policies, but to also stave off and cover up problems related to certain policies.
"The information conveyed by influencers is not always valid. Sometimes they even spread misinformation," Primayogha said, adding that "the influencers also often spoke beyond their capacity."
But a leading expert from the Presidential Office (KSP) has denied these allegations.
According to Donny Gahral Adian of the KSP, hiring influencers to promote public policy isn't wrong, as long as they don't mislead the public on various pieces of information.
“These influencers have many followers and subscribers. If they are capable of public communication and understand the substance of the policy, I don’t see any problem,” said Adian in correspondence with The Jakarta Post.
Adian further stressed that the US$6.1 million was always meant to be allocated to general public relations activities, which includes public service announcements and education programs.
What's your stance on influencers getting paid to promote government policies?
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Cover image sourced from Reuters (via Science Mag).
