Criminal Liability of Spreading Fake News on Social Media: Indonesian Criminal Law Perspective

Abstract

The spread of fake news on social media raises many legal problems in Indonesia. These legal problems are mainly lie in the formulation of the law as well as in the law enforcement area. Legal problems arising from the spread of fake news must be resolved immediately, both at the level of legislative policy and law enforcement, because it has a very negative impact on a person. In addition, studies on the spread of fake news in Indonesian are still overlooked. Therefore, reviewing the regulation on criminal liability for those who spread fake news on social media in Indonesia is very important. Doctrinal legal research methodology was applied to investigate three main issues discussed in this article. First, the current study shows that the act of spreading fake news on social media cannot be charged with Article 28 of the Indonesia Law Number 19 of 2016 concerning amendments to Law Number 8 of 2011 concerning Information and Electronic Transactions. Second, several Indonesian court decisions were studied, and it is shown that judges in deciding cases of spreading fake news on social media applied Law Number I of 1946 concerning Criminal Law. The last, related to criminal law reform, the act of spreading fake news on social media should also be regulated within the Information and Electronic Transactions Laws.