International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue VIII, August 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186
Supardi
University of Jember, Indonesia
Abstract: In the case of fake news, language has an important role as evidence to determine whether a person has made fake news. This article provides a brief exploration and description of language as evidence in the case of fake news viewed from Indonesian legal cotext. It looks at the voice note concerning the fake news of the seven voted ballots containers written and spread by Bagus Bawana Putra (BBP) through social media on 1 January 2019, approaching the general election on 17 April 2019 in Indonesia. Adopting Miles and Huberman’s data analysis model, the voice note is analysed to find which words of BBP are claimed as evidence in determining whether BBP has violated Indonesian legal provisions. The result of the analysis shows that BBP was found guilty of violating Article 14 paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 and Article 15 of Law No. 1/1946 concerning Criminal Law Regulation.
Keywords: fake news, language as evidence, legal proceeding, legal provision
I. INTRODUCTION
Up to the present time fake news has become an interesting topic that many scholars have devoted their attention to this topic for their studies. For this sense, some of them are highlighted in this current study. For example, MacGonagle (2017, p. 209) in his article Fake news: False fears or real concerns? concludes that this article is an attempt to dismiss fake news as a fake concept. Edson, et all (2018, p. 137), in the article Defining “Fake News”, address their discussion on the definition of fake news based on two dimensions: levels of facticity and deception. In her book DECEPTION: Real or Fake News? Rice (2019, pp. 4-47) teaches the readers how to make different between real and fake news. In addition, Robinson and Venzon (2019) take a little look at the case of Bagus Bawana Putra (BBP) as an example of his dicussions in his article Bots and the ballot box: Is Facebook prepared for Asia’s elections? Though fake news has been discussed in such studies, it still becomes a seminal topic for another further study