The Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press are human rights which are protected by The State Ideology Pancasila, the Indonesian Constitution of 1945, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The existence of cyber media in Indonesia are also part of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press.
The Cyber media has special characteristics; therefore, guidelines are necessary to ensure that its management can be implemented in a professional manner, fulfilling the functions, rights and obligations under the Law No. 40 of 1999 of the Press and The Journalism Code of Ethics.
For that reason, the Press Council jointly withother press organizations, cyber media managers, and the general public decided toformulate the Cyber Media News Coverage Guidelines as follows:
Scope
Cyber media is any form of media that uses the Internet and doing journalistic activities, in accordance with the Press Law and the Standards for Press Companies established by the Press Council.
User Generated Content is any content created or published by users of cyber media, such as, articles, pictures, commentary, voice, video and uploaded forms which are attached to the cyber media, such as blogs, forums, reader’s or viewer’s comments, and other forms.
Verification and newsbalance
In principle, each story has to be verified.
News that may harm certain party should be verified within the same news to comply with the principle of accuracy and balancing.
The provisions in item (a) above may be waived, on condition that:
The News contains information of public urgency;
The first source of news is clearly an identified, credible and competent source;
The whereabouts of the should be confirmed news subjectis not known and/or cannot be interviewed;
The media explains to the readers that the news still needs further verification, and such verification will be made as soon as possible. The explanation should be included at the end of the same story, in parentheses, and initalics.
After loading the news in accordance with clause (c), the media must continue its efforts to verify the news, and once such verification is obtained, it should be listed as a news update with a link to the previous unverified news.
User Generated Content
The Cyber media must announce the terms and conditions of User Generated Content which should not violate the Law No. 40 of 1999 of the Press and the Journalism Code of Ethics, and such announcement should be visibly placed.
The Cyber media obliges each user to register for membership and should go through a log-in process to be able to publish all forms of user generated content. Provisions on the log-in procedure shall be formulated further.
In the registration, the cyber media requires all users to give a written approval that the User Generated Content to be published:
Does not contain content of a lie, slander, and of sadistic and obscene nature;
Does not contain content of prejudice and hatred towards certain ethnicity, religion, race, and community, and does not encourage acts of violence;
Does not discriminate on the basis gender and language, and does not disrespect the dignity of the weak, the poor, and the mentally or physically disabled or handicapped.
The Cyber media reserve the right to edit or delete the user generated content that is deemed in violation to item (c).
The Cyber media shall provide a complaint mechanism for the User Generated Content which was deemed in violation to the provisions in point (c). Such mechanism must be easily accessible to the users.
The Cyber media must edit, delete, and perform any necessary corrections to the User Generated Content which was reported to have violated the provisions of item (c), proportionally and as soon as possible within no later than 2 x 24 hours after such report is received.
The Cyber media that have complied withthe provisions in items (a), (b), (c), and (f) is not responsible for liabilities caused by the loading of content that violates the provisions of item (c).
The Cyber media shall be responsible for the User Generated Contents which has been reported but has carried out the correction required within the period as stipulated in item (f).
Rectification, Correction, and the Right to Reply
Rectifications, corrections, and the right to reply are referred as stipulated in the Press Law, the Code of Journalistic Ethics, and the Guidelines to the Right to Reply established by the Press Council.
Rectifications, corrections and or the right to reply should be referred to the news which the rectifications, corrections, or the right to reply are intended to.
For each rectification, correction or the right to reply, it should also be included the time of the publication of related rectification, correction or the performance of the right to reply.
If a particular cyber media news is disseminated by other cyber media, then:
The responsibility of cyber media producing the news is limited to news published in its cyber media or other cyber media which is under its technical authority;
Correction to the news carried out by theoriginal cyber media, should also be performed by the other citing cyber medias;
The media,who is disseminating the news originated from a cyber-media and did not performed the necessary corrections to the news as it is performed by the original cyber media or news generator, then the media is fully responsible for all legal consequences of the news which was not corrected.
In accordance with the Press Law, cyber media which does not accommodate the right to reply is punishable with a fine of maximum Rp500.000.000 (five hundred million rupiahs).
Revocation of News
News that has been published cannot be revoked on reasons of censorship by any parties except bythe editor, unless it is related to prejudice and hatred towards certain ethnicity, religion, race, and community,on grounds of indecency, the future of children, traumatic experiences of victims or other considerations that shall be determined the Press Council.
Other cyber media are obliged to follow the removal of the same news which was cited from the original media where the news has been revoked.
The revocation of news should be accompanied by a public announcement on the reasons for such revocation.
Advertisement
Cyber media must clearly distinguish between news and advertisement.
Any news / articles / content which is in actual are advertisement or paid content should carry the description of “advertorial”, “advertisement”, “ads”, “sponsored” or other words explaining that the news / article / content is an advertisement.
Copyright
The Cyber media must respect the copyrights as governed by other laws and regulations.
Inclusion Guidelines
The Cyber media should visibly include this Cyber Media news coverage guideliness.
Dispute
Any dispute arising from the implementation of this Cyber Media news coverage guidelinessshall be resolved by the Press Council.
Jakarta, February 3, 2012
Agreed by organizations of journalists and publishers