The buzz on the street right now centers on an allegation that the Indonesian government spent billions of rupiah to influence public opinion and promote programs using social media influencers.
Based on its investigation into government spending, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) reported that huge social media outlays have been made since 2017 under the current administration.
“Total central government spending on activities involving influencers reached IDR90.45 billion (US$6.1 million) for 40 programs,” ICW researcher Egi Primayogha said in a virtual press conference on Thursday.
The bulk of the money, amounting to IDR56.55 billion, was spent in 2018. In 2020, the government has spent IDR9.53 billion on influencers thus far, ICW’s report found.
Among the institutions to benefit from influencers include the Information and Communications Ministry, which spent IDR10.83 billion on four influencer programs, and the Education and Culture Ministry, which spent IDR1.6 billion on 20 influencer programs.
“The public deserves to know which policies and programs used the service of influencers. Influencers also must provide disclaimers on posts that are paid for by the government,” Egi said, implying that the opposite has been largely true.
Information and Communications Minister Johnny G. Plate denied ICW’s report, saying that his ministry has spent money on programs to train people to become digitally literate influencers as opposed to paying influencers to promote government programs, without going into further detail.
Not all influencer budgets had to be unearthed by a corruption watchdog. In February, before Indonesia officially reported its first coronavirus cases, the government announced that it allocated IDR72 billion to pay influencers to promote tourism as the outbreak raged on elsewhere in the world.
It’s not known if the program went ahead amid the inevitable public backlash and the shift in focus to healthcare when Indonesia did eventually report its COVID-19 cases. But recently, influencers promoted “new travel habits” in conjunction with Bali reopening its doors to domestic tourists on July 31.
More nefariously, influencers also recently posted content in support of the controversial job creation bill — which is feared would potentially erode workers’ rights in favor of job creation and ease of investment.
Members of the opposition in the House of Parliament (DPR) have lambasted the government’s influencer spending, calling it a “waste” among other more dangerous implications.
“The public could become biased because the information provided by influencers tend to be subjective and they side with the government … In the end, the public will lose their ability to think critically because of the deluge of influencer opinion,” Netty Prasetiyani, deputy chairwoman of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction in DPR, said.
