inp.polri.go.id - Kudus. The Acting Regent of Kudus Hasan Chabibie held a Literacy Festival Workshop entitled 'Social Media Literacy and Anti-Violence' at the Pendapa of Kudus Regency which reveals a number of challenges in the use of social media. Among them, hate speech, fake news or hoaxes, even cyber bullying.

One of the many examples is the incident of a brawl between students that occurred in Kudus. This was motivated by mutual challenges and hate speech on social media.

According to him, the use of social media also resulted in the iceberg phenomenon that caused violence. This is because the existence of social media is not balanced with sufficient levels of literacy and understanding.

"So what comes out is only hate speech and mutual taunting on each other's social media, which ends up with gangs gathering and fighting. So why did all this happen? Well, because of the lack of interest in reading, the lack of literacy in Indonesia as a whole," he explained.

He did not deny that the culture of using social media cannot be prevented. According to him, people prefer surfing on social media rather than reading novels.

"Currently, most people have gadgets or communication tools that allow you to be a content producer and publisher at the same time. So, with gadgets you can immediately become and provide information to the public," he concluded.

He also reminded that the public needs to have adequate literacy skills so that activities on social media remain useful.

"The flow of social media does demand our attention. However, we all have to be literate so that we can be wise in using social media," he said.

(ad/fa/pr/nm)