Language as Evidence in the Judicial Process of Fake News of Ferdinand Hutahaean’s Tweet Viewed from Indonesian Legal Provisions

As a means of communication, language plays a vital role in various disciplines. In the legal context, for example, the message conveyed through social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp can cause legal problems if it contains things prohibited by law, such as fake news and hate speech. For these facts, this current study focuses on the language of the fake news in Ferdinand Hutahaean (FH) ‘s tweet. With this focus, it explores the answers to such questions as which FH’s statement in his tweet was considered fake news, why FH’s tweet became fake news that led him to undergo a judicial process, and what legal process FH experienced. To answer these questions,  the data constituting words, phrases, or sentences of FH’s statement were collected from the authentic text of FH’s tweet considered fake news. In addition, the collected data were analyzed using Miles and Huberman’s data analysis model integrated into the thematic analysis recommended by Braun and Clarke. Based on the result of the analysis, it shows that FH was found guilty because his tweet was considered fake news because he violated such Indonesian legal provisions as Article 14, paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 and Article 15 of Law No. 1/1946 about Criminal Law Regulation.