[GELORA45] Muslim Cyber Army: a 'fake news' operation designed to bring down Indonesia's leader

[jonathango...@yahoo.com [GELORA45]]

 

 Muslim Cyber Army: a 'fake news' operation designed to bring down Indonesia's 
leader 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/13/muslim-cyber-army-a-fake-news-operation-designed-to-bring-down-indonesias-leader

 
 Police in Indonesia make arrests as Guardian investigation reveals fake 
Twitter accounts and violent propaganda


 
 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/13/muslim-cyber-army-a-fake-news-operation-designed-to-bring-down-indonesias-leader#img-1
  A screengrab from the Muslim Cyber Army acebook page. Photograph: Facebook 

 Police in Indonesia https://www.theguardian.com/world/indonesia believe they 
have uncovered a clandestine fake news operation designed to corrupt the 
political process and destabilise the government.
 
 In a string of arrests across the archipelago in recent weeks, authorities 
have revealed the inner workings of a self-proclaimed cyber-jihadist network 
known as the Muslim Cyber Army (MCA).
 The network is accused of spreading fake news and hate speech to inflame 
religious and ethnic schisms; fan paranoia around gay men and lesbians, alleged 
communists and Chinese people; and spread defamatory content to undermine the 
president.
 Police say the network was orchestrated through a central Whatsapp group 
called the Family MCA.
 One wing was tasked with stockpiling divisive content to disseminate, while a 
separate “sniper” team was employed to hack accounts and spread computer 
viruses on the electronic devices of their opponents.
 The arrest of 14 individuals is the second such syndicate police have busted 
in the last year – deepening fears around Indonesia’s vulnerability to the 
pernicious spread of fake news.
 False accounts and lies In the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, among 
the top five biggest users of Facebook and Twitter globally, some say it is 
unsurprising that rising religiosity and racial division is playing out 
viciously online.
 It is in this environment that the Muslim Cyber Army was born and has since 
thrived, in a digital ecosystem flush with bots, fake accounts and lies.
 
 A Guardian investigation conducted over several months uncovered one 
coordinated cluster of the Muslim Cyber Army on Twitter.
 
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/13/muslim-cyber-army-a-fake-news-operation-designed-to-bring-down-indonesias-leader#img-2
  Identical tweets from bots. Photograph: Twitter 

 

 

 The investigation identified:
 A matryoshka doll-like system of more than 100 bots or semi-automated accounts.
 Links between the cyber army and opposition parties, as well as the military. 
Details of 103 cases of brutal “bounty hunting” incited by the 
“cyber-jihadists”. The network identified by the Guardian was created for the 
sole purpose of tweeting inflammatory content and messages designed to amplify 
social and religious division, and push a hardline Islamist and anti-government 
line.
 Tell-tale signs of a bot The messaging was cleverly designed to appeal to 
broad Islamic sympathies.
 Posts about the persecution of Muslims in Myanmar and Palestine, for example, 
were mixed in with domestically inspired vitriol, hatred for the Chinese 
minority, or support for hardline Indonesian figures and their protests.
 

 The network, which functioned between July and November 2017, had all the 
tell-tale signs of a bot, or network of semi-automated accounts.
 Posts were often identical in nature, with the same text, meme or hashtag 
repeated dozens of times. The accounts would sometimes tweet up to 30 times a 
day. All accounts were opaque, with no name or location, and followed 
identifiable patterns.
 One group of 30 accounts, for example, featured striking profile photos of 
bearded, Viking-esque men, with the names of different Indonesian military 
bases or agencies, or government posts. Another set featured accounts with 
pictures of pigs.
 The discovery illuminates how different interest groups operated within the 
MCA network for nefarious political ends. It also highlights how easy it is to 
game social media networks, especially Twitter.
 
 With an army of bots, semi-automated and fake accounts, it is relatively 
simple to sway public perception, propel a hashtag into a trending list, or 
engineer an online poll.
 
 
  Facebook image from the Muslim Cyber Army. Photograph: Facebook 

 

 

 In the lead-up to what is expected to be a heated 2019 presidential election – 
a likely replay of the bitter 2014 contest 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/indonesia-presidential-vote-volunteer-monitors
 – the MCA has regularly generated questionable surveys. The polls often 
feature a picture of the two expected candidates, current president Joko Widodo 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jul/23/ten-things-to-know-about-joko-widodo-jokowi-profile-video,
 and his rival, former army general Prabowo Subianto 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/17/indonesian-tensions-ease-as-election-loser-subianto-congratulates-jokowi.
 Under pictures of the two men, users are asked to retweet for Prabowo or 
“like” for Widodo.
 The results, retweeted by thousands of seemingly fake accounts and bots, 
invariably sway in the former general’s favour.
 Viciously targeted Last year there was 103 cases of so-called bounty hunting 
orchestrated by the Muslim Cyber Army, which circulated lists of people to 
attack – including their names, addresses, and identities of family members.
 
 People deemed to have criticised Islam on social media accounts were viciously 
targeted, intimidated, beaten, and forced to record video apologies. In some 
cases these activities had explicit approval from the military, with officers 
present.
 Analysts believe the MCA is a vast umbrella network utilised by various 
interested parties, united by its intolerant views and vocal mission to topple 
the president.
 Advertisement
 

 Damar Junianto, from SAFEnet, the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression 
Network, has been closely studying the Muslim Cyber Army.
 “I found there are four clusters of the MCA,” he said. “Each cluster has its 
own agenda but they are coordinated in groups, with buzzers and also bot 
machines.”
 “Buzzers” refers to accounts with large followings, in some cases more than 
100,000, which are used to amplify messages from accounts with less traction.
 Junianto’s clusters also reveal some interesting bedfellows: links to 
opposition parties, the military, and an organisation of increasingly 
influential Islamists.
 The Twitter battlefield Police have so far been tight-lipped about who is 
behind the network, but it is understood they are aware of at least one 
politically influential financier.
 Digital strategists describe the recent onslaught of bots and cyber armies 
such as the MCA as akin to psychological warfare playing out “in the dark ages 
of the internet”.
 Shafiq Pontoh, from the data consultancy firm Provetic, said Twitter in 
particular “has become a huge, bloody battlefield”.
 “The first victim in the polluted ecosystem was the governor election, Ahok,” 
said Pontoh, referring to former Jakarta governor, Basuki ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja 
Purnama, who last year was jailed 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/09/jakarta-governor-ahok-found-guilty-of-blasphemy-jailed-for-two-years
 on controversial blasphemy charges.
 “It was all because of fake news, bots, black campaigns, prejudice and racism.”
 Clusters of bots in the Indonesia Twittersphere appear and disappear quickly, 
seemingly employed for short-term political gain. One cluster identified by the 
Guardian, which was used to pump out anti-Ahok material last year, stopped 
tweeting two days after the governor election and has been quiet since.
 Savic Ali, online director at Indonesia’s largest Islamic group, Nahdlatul 
Ulama, suggested the Muslim Cyber Army is not really about the true values of 
Islam.
 “This is the political imagination,” he said. “It’s about power.”
 With concerns over rising intolerance and intense jockeying around the 2019 
election already underway, few doubt Indonesia’s social networks will be 
increasingly gamed and weaponised.
 Even after the recent arrests, Junianto believes it is just a matter of time 
before new manifestations appear.
 
 “This is only the beginning,” he said. “They are getting equipped for 2019.”