- 06/07/2020
- Category: Commentaries
Yogyakarta, July 3rd, 2020 – During the pandemic, the presence of digital technology, in general, has become an inseparable part of human life. Especially social media platforms, which have various roles to help us in doing our activities during the pandemic, such as to facilitate economic transactions, access to information, and other social activities.
To discuss the role of social media platforms in the pandemic era, Center for Digital Society (CfDS) held its Digitalk series which also invited Noudhy Valdryno as Politics and Government Outreach of Facebook Indonesia & APAC. The event, which was held online via YouTube Livestream, took place on Friday (3/5).
Facebook’s Efforts to Fight The ‘Infodemic’
According to Noudhy, Facebook boasts 2,45 billion users so far, and that number continues to increase during the pandemic. This shows the desire of the online community to stay connected during the pandemic through media social platforms. Under one of the main pillars of Facebook, which is to facilitate the online community in it to be able to stay connected, Facebook continues to improve the experience for the community to interact and exchange ideas through various new features of Facebook. Nonetheless, the interactions that occur between these online communities on media social platforms also contribute to the existence of this negative impact, namely the existence of hoaxes and misinformation, especially those related to the COVID-19 issue. The presence of information that is not validated inside the platform is certainly a challenge for Facebook. But during the pandemic, Facebook tried to filter out the content or misinformation that was circulating on Facebook in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and the ministries of health in various countries. One of the collaborations was also manifested by the presence of the COVID-19 information center feature on the Facebook main page to ensure that everyone who uses the platform has access to accurate information about the COVID-19 issue.
Facebook’s Support for the Digital Economy
As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed, the economic sector experienced a very drastic decline. Based on Noudhy’s explanation, Facebook is trying to help the economic recovery in Indonesia by facilitating MSMEs to move to digital platforms. The steps taken by Facebook to assist MSMEs with digital transformation are, by holding a variety of free online training for MSMEs in utilizing social media during the pandemic, through the ‘Akademi Instagram’ and ‘Laju Digital’ programs. Besides, Facebook also creates supporting features in various applications such as promotional upload features on Instagram, Facebook creative shop features (content and video editing features), and Whatsapp Business features. “Determine the online target market and make sure the product being marketed has its own characteristics or uniqueness, so that with a clear target market and attractive products, MSMEs can collaborate with the government and private sector,” said Noudhy in sharing his advice for MSMEs that will do the digital transformation.
Closing his presentation Noudhy advised social media platform users to not only maximize the economic potential in the platform but also help their friends who were recently exposed to the internet, so they could sort out the accurate information in this digital age.
Writer: Firya Qurratu’ain A.
Editor: Raka Wicaksono
