Fight Hoaxes with Digital Literacy in the Modern Era

Digital literacy as one of the right ways to ward off hoaxes

In this modern era, humans have gone through various stages in entering the information age, where every country is trying to connect all institutions into one network through telecommunication tools.

The development of globalization in the field of technology and information has now changed the traditional aspects of society, one of which can facilitate the activities of people's lives. This is evidenced by the existence of information technology that gave birth to complex computer technology, namely the internet network (International Networking).

The internet is a communication network that functions quickly and accurately to connect one electronic media to another so that it can amaze the public. From teenagers to adults, the majority use the internet as a means to help carry out various human activities efficiently, practically and accurately.

Today's modern technology can bring a variety of positive and negative impacts. The positive impact is that it can facilitate human activities in carrying out their lives, for example getting information easily, the existence of social media and so on. Not only have a positive impact, the development of information and communication technology also has a negative impact that we need to be aware of. One of the events that often occurs today is the number of fake news or hoaxes.

Hoaxes occur because the internet as an online medium makes information that has not been verified true or not spread quickly. There are also many irresponsible people in spreading hoax news on the internet. Therefore, we must be careful in sorting and selecting the news to be sought so as not to fall into hoax news.

How to prevent hoaxes

How to prevent hoaxes? So, the prevention of hoaxes can be done by increasing digital literacy to the community. Digital literacy is the ability to use and utilize social media effectively. The existence of this digital literacy so that people have the ability to think critically, creatively and innovatively to the problems that are happening.

Thus, the community must also learn to provide education and not to spread news that is not yet known to be true. In addition, digital literacy should be introduced to children from an early age because today many children are able to operate gadgets. If digital literacy is introduced early, then people will have the skills to use social media properly and wisely.

Character education is also one way to prevent hoaxes, namely by instilling an honest attitude towards children. Parents and teachers must also supervise their children on social media and play an active role in supporting the digital literacy movement for children.

The way to prevent hoaxes is not to be fooled by news titles that contain provocative content that can trigger perceptions. Pay attention to the news sources to search for with official and verified pages. Finally, verify the authenticity of a story from various sources.

So in conclusion, digital literacy not only provides the ability to operate, understand and utilize technology, but also can provide the ability to sort and select information so as not to fall into fake news (hoaks). Therefore, the existence of digital literacy plays an important role in warding off hoaxes that are widespread today.