The issue of hoax stories proliferating on social media has been in the spotlight in Indonesia lately, with many arguing that the anger surrounding Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s alleged blasphemy has been whipped up by fake news stories created by Ahok’s political enemies.
One crude attempt to discredit Ahok recently made the rounds on social media before being quickly exposed as inaccurate. It features a photo of Ahok having a meal alongside National Police Chief Tito Karnavian.
Let the photo do the talking
The injustices that occur in Indonesia
Are because of events in which they often drink ALCOHOL while hanging with Ahok
The law only impacts those below
Not above
The implication of the photo is that Chief Tito is giving Ahok special treatment in his blasphemy case because they’re drinking buddies that love to have a few bottles of beer together.
Those assumptions are wrong for many reasons, but the most obvious one is that they are not drinking beer or any other kind of alcohol in that picture – those are actually bottles of Equil brand water.
Netizens piled on pointing out and making fun of the error in Jack’s post, eventually turning Equil into a Twitter trending topic in Indonesia this morning.
Homework for the elected governor: Reducing social inequalities that are still high. For example: there are some people who have never seen Equil before.
Jesus made water into wine. Ahok made Equil into alcohol.
The lesson is, if you’re going to make up fake news, do your research and at least learn how to use Photoshop.
