Based on the results of social media monitoring held from August to November 2019, there were 24 Facebook accounts that support Free West Papua activities. The most popular is the West Papua Campaign Facebook account which cumulatively received up to 390 thousand likes.
These social media that support Free West Papua have been detected as being operated from several countries such as England, Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, the Philippines and the United States.
Meanwhile, the Facebook account Free West Papua Campaign is known to be operated from the UK and managed by four administrative officers.
In addition, campaigning activities to support Free West Papua were also carried out with several hashtags such as: #FreeWestPapua; #Referendum; #BoycottBali; #GlobalFlagRising
Meanwhile, from the monitoring results in the timeline, the activities of the Free West Papua campaign peaked in September and October 2019 where at the same time there were several protests that turned violent in the Papua region. The activity was carried out in order to seek international attention because it coincided with the UN General Assembly activities. However, the intention to steal the attention of the international community was a failure. This was proven in November Free West Papua’s campaign activities on social media fell sharply.
Monitoring of social media supporting Free West Papua is also carried out by analysing its accounts users.
Based on these observations it can be concluded that the number of active users conducting and supporting campaigns on social media is 3,081 with 9,035 conversations.
Users who are very active in commenting are Alan Knox, Toi Jon, Wybee Marang Danah, Viva Pacion, Duddleys Rads, Nes Lowe, Robson Urai and Adolf Wellip who are all not Papuans.
Here are some examples of the users origin :
@Alan Knox is from Australia, living in the United States
@Adolf Wellip is from and lives in PNG
@Toi Jon is from Australia, living in Singapore
@Gerald Sofianos, originally from and living in Australia
@Alan Thomas originates and lives in Australia
While in Indonesia, the links or conversations of the Free West Papua campaign are controlled by the KNPB.
The efforts of the Free West Papua supporters to utilize social media are believed by Tell The Truths as an effort that needs to be taken seriously by the Indonesian government considering the information disseminated filled with lies and deviations, which are tailored to their political interests.
