The Productive Power of Disinformation? Curating Twitter Secrets in the Public of Distrust

Paper Abstract: This paper interrogates online disinformation through the lens of secrecy in the context of class relations among Jakarta urban citizens. Instead of a myopic focus on disinformation as an "information disorder" as commonly understood, I frame it as an epistemological act: participating—and revealing—a public assumed to be shrouded by epistemic murk. This obscurity grants disinformation its perceived authenticity, anchored in the allure of unveiled secrets. While most research on disinformation, including conspiracy theories, discusses right-wing extremism and its harmful effects, there is not enough attention given to its productive power within the Indonesian post-authoritarian milieu. The paper is informed by ethnographic fieldwork with political buzzers engaged in disinformation campaigns, as well as Twitter influencers who inadvertently contributed to such campaigns, during the Jakarta 2017 Election—a period rife with circulating rumors of an impending Islamic caliphate. Through examining the circulation of pamphlets and stories of elusive Islamist agents purportedly trying to instill a caliphate, the paper zooms in on the experiences of Jakarta's middle class, historically depoliticized, now grappling for political agency via disinformation. Beyond mere platform affordances that amplify disinformation, the paper highlights the intrinsic "public secret" nature of Indonesian political culture enabling its circulation. This post-authoritarian landscape propels citizens towards hyperhermeneuticism, a constant quest to "read between the lines", externalizing politics to elusive puppeteers. Drawing from Cabanes' "imaginative communication" and Bubandt's conceptualization of rumors, I argue that disinformation needs to be examined beyond the common model of propaganda—it is, instead, co-created in a public of distrust.