Amid all the dramatic highs of this year’s incredible FIFA World Cup, a legal drama is brewing in the soccer-mad nation of Indonesia involving national TV station tvOne and a soccer-related meme aggregator on Instagram.
As we all know, France beat Argentina 4-3 on June 30 in arguably the most thrilling World Cup match so far, but local Instagram account @bola_gila (a handle that translates to “crazy soccer”), which is known for its cheeky irreverence among its 1 million folowers, posted the screenshot above purporting to show that tvOne mixed up the score in its news ticker, which reads, “Argentina wins 4-3 over France.”
Representatives of tvOne are not taking this meme lightly, saying yesterday that they plan to sue @bola_gila for defamation over the fake screenshot.
“On June 30 at 23:09, tvOne did not air the show Kabar Arena Pagi,” said tvOne Public Relations Manager Raldy Doy, as quoted by Viva yesterday.
“The anchor, Sandra Olga, was also on duty with another TV station at the time.”
Raldy said the fake screenshot constituted a cyber crime and that the TV station would be reporting @bola_gila to the police within the next few days.
Under Indonesia’s Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE), defamation is punishable by up to four years’ imprisonment.
Yesterday, @bola_gila posted an apology to tvOne on their Instagram page, saying that they didn’t create the photoshopped image but that they did deeply regret reposting it.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BksIC3GjyTK/?hl=en&taken-by=bola_gila
This is hardly the first meme to imply a lack of credibility by tvOne. The TV station has the tagline “memang beda” (roughly translating to “it’s different”), leading to the creation of numerous memes featuring fake screenshots purporting to show tvOne reporting false stories. This is, however, the first reported instance of tvOne actually planning to take legal action against somebody over a meme.
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