Top Health Hoaxes Found Through June 2023

Between August 2018 and June 2023, the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Informatics (Kemenkominfo) identified 11,759 pieces of hoax content.

This content was identified, verified, and validated by Kemenkominfo's AIS team. The team reported that the largest category of hoaxes during this period was health, with 2,293 pieces of content. "In the health category, some hoax content related to the Covid-19 pandemic was still found," the AIS team wrote on the Kemenkominfo website on Wednesday, July 19, 2023.

The next largest categories were government (2,131 hoaxes), fraud (1,984 hoaxes), and politics (1,392 hoaxes).

Trade and education had the fewest hoaxes, with 66 and 65 respectively.

Overall, the total number of hoax, disinformation, and misinformation content from January to June 2023 increased compared to the same period in 2022. "There was an increase of 29 pieces of hoax content, with hoaxes related to government, such as misleading health information and the impersonation of public officials for fraud, dominating," said the AIS team.

In June 2023 alone, 117 hoax contents were found online. This is lower than May 2023, which recorded 141 hoax contents.

The AIS team was formed in January 2018 to monitor, identify, verify, and validate all internet content circulating in Indonesia's cyberspace. This includes hoaxes, terrorism and radicalism, pornography, gambling, and other negative content.

Kemenkominfo stated that the AIS team currently consists of 100 personnel supported by an AIS machine operating 24/7.

The following are the findings on hoax issues by category from August 2018 to June 30, 2023:

* Health: 2,293 pieces of content
* Government: 2,131 pieces of content
* Fraud: 1,984 pieces of content
* Politics: 1,392 pieces of content
* International: 686 pieces of content
* Crime: 616 pieces of content
* Disaster: 527 pieces of content
* Defamation: 473 pieces of content
* Religion: 340 pieces of content
* Myths: 227 pieces of content
* Trade: 66 pieces of content
* Education: 65 pieces of content
* Others: 959 pieces of content

(Also read: What are Indonesians Doing to Prevent Hoaxes? Here's the Survey Result)