I’ve been interviewed by many researchers, and everyone pretty much always asked this particular question:

“Why fact-checking is not working?” or “Is it enough to solve the mis/disinformation problem by doing fact-checking?”

By which my answer is always the same: doing fact-checking, alone, will NEVER solve this problem.

There is no silver bullet for this monster.

We need to do so much in order to be able to combat hoax, our umbrella term for the whole spectrum of mis/disinformation, effectively.

We need to educate the public. We need to advocate the governments, so they can develop the right regulations & policies. We need to work together with academics and researchers, so they can pinpoint the right courses of actions. We need to work with journalists, so people will always have trusted sources of information. And of course we need to do hoax busting / fact-checking as well.

It’s a massive scope of work which require massive amount of efforts & resources.

Therefore I’m always so grateful to Mafindo’s volunteers. Due to their sheer numbers and depth & breadth of their skills capacity & capabilities, Mafindo has been able to do all of the above.

Indonesia is so lucky to have them. I hope we will always be able to support their efforts effectively.