Young Netizen Day reminds young people to use social media responsibly
Deisha Tamar
October 23, 2011
The Jakarta Post
In an effort to give something back to society, six alumni of the Study of the United States Institutes (SUSI) of New Media 2010 organized a one-day seminar called Indonesia Young Netizen Day (IYND), on Oct. 1 at @america in the Pacific Place mall, Jakarta.The event, themed “The Use of Social Media Tools to Promote Social Change”, aimed to raise awareness for young people in using social media responsibly.The entire event itself was prepared by Internet services. Participants hoping to join the seminar and get certificates first had to register themselves using an online form. Those who had not registered online could still attend the seminar, but were not given certificates. The initiators, each from a different city (Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Medan, Padang and Makassar), relied on social media and the Internet to make preparations for the event for a whole year, through a conference using Yahoo Messenger, while Twitter and Facebook were also used to contact each other and to exchange information. Then, on the day of the event, the six committee members finally met each other face-to-face in Jakarta.The six, who were part of the SUSI short scholarship program organized by the US State Department, created the event after winning a grant from a non-profit US-based organization, AED, which soon would be integrated into FHI360. The US Embassy in Jakarta and @america were their partners in organizing the event.More than 150 people attended the seminar, ranging from high school and university students to members of the general public and youth organizations. During the first session, blogger and managing director of salingsilang.com, Enda Nasution, talked about trends in social media use in Indonesia and how to be a responsible social media user. Wisnu Martha, a new media analyst from Gadjah Mada University, gave a short yet enjoyable lecture about new media and how it affects young people’s lives.In the second session, with a more relaxed and youthful vibe, Indonesian Future Leaders president Iman Usman and Febry Fakhurrizal from Bantu Indonesia shared their experiences in utilizing social media to promote social change.Both youth organizations successfully gained followers on Twitter and Facebook — especially with Bantu Indonesia, which enables people to donate money through social media. Of course, it wouldn’t have been a social media event if there weren’t live tweets of the seminar content from IYND twitter account @YoungNetizenID and live streaming from the @america website. At the end of the seminar, the committee asked participants and everyone attending the event to simultaneously tweet “I am a responsible netizen” using the hashtag #IYND2011, to show their commitment to start being responsible netizens.But, IYND didn’t end there. To give the event a bigger impact, there is also a writing competition open to high school and university students aged 16 to 25, with three topics to choose from: responsible netizen, social media and youth, or new media for social action. This competition is organized in the hope that the participants can implement what they have learned through the seminars in a written essay. Enda Nasution and Wisnu Martha will pick three winners, to be announced on Oct. 25.
