IGF 2016: Enabling Inclusive and Sustainable Growth

Indonesia Open Forum: Social Media and Democracy

Social media has been an inseparable aspect of daily life and successfully connected citizen of the world through various emerging applications. It also transforms how people interract, exchange ideas, and share information into a way that has never been possible before. It provides powerful platform to engage people to join in a discourse, and even a collective action. For Indonesia, the largest moderate Muslim democracy in the world with 132,7 million internet users, and surely many other countries in the world, the emergence of social media serves as groundbreaking and essential tools for strengthening participatory of political and civil engagement. The innovation of online civil engagement can also break barriers hindering the underrepresented in the process of democracy, such as female and youth. It has also aid the effort government around the world in doing public service in a more transparent and accountable manner as well as serves as an effective media to nurture tolerance and respect for diversity. As social media provides convenience to our life, it also comes with its own challenges. Nations often confronted by paradoxes of social media as a tool to facilitate democratic development, yet by the same time used as a medium to incite hartred. The immense flood of information and the rise of disinformation in online sphere also pose a challenge for the citizen in making an informed decision for their civic participation. The session will discussed the role of social media in strengthening civic engagement around the world and therefore aim to seize the opportunities and manage the challenges that permeates in the rise of social media, particularly in promoting and sustaining democratic governance of a nation.

Name of Speaker(s): 
Dirgayuza Setiawan (Author and ISOC Fellow) 
Hamza Ben Mehrez (Policy Analyst Lead, IG MENA) 
Mariam Barata (Deputy Director General of ICT Application, MCIT Indonesia) 
Tereza Horejsova (Project Development Director, DiploFoundation) 

Moderator: Shita Laksmi (IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group/Hivos)
Remote Moderator: Donny BU (ICT Watch)
Rapporteur: Rizki Ameliah (Ministry of CIT, Indonesia)

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