REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto has ordered members of the military police corps to upgrade their digital skills. It was needed to deal with an increasing trend of cybercrimes on internet-based media, he said.
"As a precautionary measure against the increased incidents of cybercrimes on electronic and social media platforms, the military police corps' members should be adaptive to the latest developments in information technology," Hadi stated here on Friday.
Speaking at a roll call at the Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base in East Jakarta, Hadi emphasized that having sufficient digital skills will enable personnel of the military police corps to take necessary measures to deal with cybercrimes. The personnel could also safeguard themselves from being affected by fake news circulated through various social media platforms and participate in defending TNI's good image from the impact of proliferated hoaxes, he noted.
In connection with the real threats of cybercrimes, the Communication and Informatics Ministry, on Thursday, shut down a fake Instagram account illegally using the name of the TNI, whose content threatened leftists. The fake Instagram account was called @tni_indonesia_update, the ministry revealed in its press statement made available to Antara here on Thursday.
The fake social media account proliferated hate speeches and threats that the account creator would "crush" leftists with critical thoughts and those alleged to be members of the new generation of the banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
In response to this case, Indonesian Army Spokesman Brig. Gen. Candra Wijaya told the Communication and Informatics Ministry's officials that the Instagram account of @tni_indonesia_update did not belong to the Indonesian Army. The army's official Instagram account is @tni_angkatan_darat.
Regarding this issue, the TNI headquarters had officially urged the ministry to take down all social media accounts illegally using the name of TNI on Feb 6.