Ministry outlines five strategic pillars to combat AI-driven disinformation
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Molly Prabawaty, Expert Staff to the Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs for Public and Mass Communication, has revealed five strategic pillars that must be pursued collectively to confront the threat of disinformation fuelled by artificial intelligence (AI).
Molly noted that in Indonesia alone, a study by Engage Media in 2026 showed a 43 percent increase in disinformation content on social media platforms between 2020 and 2023, with AI search algorithms being one of the drivers of that rise.
“The scale and complexity of AI-based disinformation demand a comprehensive multi-party response. No single entity — whether government, technology platforms, community groups, or academia — can tackle this problem alone,” Molly said at an event organised by MASTEL together with BBC Media Action, titled “Building Healthy Information Environments: Collaborative Responses to Disinformation in the Digital Age”, in Jakarta on Thursday.
According to her, equipping citizens with the skills to distinguish credible information from falsehoods is the foremost priority. “Educational campaigns to raise public awareness are considered crucial to building societal resilience against disinformation content,” Molly said.
The ministry is promoting the ethical development and use of AI, ensuring the technology is designed with safeguards against disinformation misuse, including exploring mechanisms for verifying content authenticity.
The third pillar is strengthening the regulatory framework. Molly said freedom of expression must indeed be supported in the digital space, but regulation is still needed to ensure that Indonesians continue to receive truthful information, not merely what goes viral.
The fourth pillar is enhancing cooperation with many partners at both regional and international levels. Disinformation, Molly noted, knows no territorial boundaries, and therefore cross-country coordination to address similar problems can be a vital step in delivering a healthy information environment for the public.
Finally, a crucial pillar in combating AI-based disinformation is supporting the presence of independent journalism to verify facts. A strong and independent media landscape, accompanied by solid fact-checking initiatives, is viewed by the government as a critical defensive bastion in the fight against the spread of false narratives in the digital space.