169 ISSN (Print) 0854-6509 - ISSN (Online) 2549-4600 Devi Rahma Fatmala, et al LJIH 28 (2) Sept-2020, 169-182 LEGALITY: JURNAL ILMIAH HUKUM Journal homepage: http://www.ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/legality The Use of Social Media Bot Accounts on Influencing Public Opinion: A Legal Review in Indonesia Devi Rahma Fatmala 1* , Amanda Amelia 2 , Fitri Agustina Trianingsih 2 1,2,3 Master of Laws, Faculty of Law, University of Airlangga, Surabaya, East Java, 60286, Indonesia * Corresponding author: devirahmafatmala11@gmail.com Article Abstract Keywords: Bot accounts; social media; public opinion; democracy; legal review. Article History Received: May 8, 2020; Reviewed: June 3, 2020; Accepted: Sept 14, 2020; Published: Sept 30, 2020 DOI: 10.22219/ljih.v28i2.12148 Today’s political discourse cannot be separated from the usage of social media. There are plenty of political actors using it to campaign their issues and attack their political rivals to influence public opinion. One of the instruments used by the political actor in using social media is bot accounts. Bot accounts are an automated online account where all or substantially all of the actions or posts of that account are not the result of a person. The usage of bot accounts is viewed as harmful for democracy by many experts on law and democracy. However, lots of states have no regulation regarding the usage of bot accounts, including Indonesia. This article intends to bring legal review on the usage of bot accounts to influence public opinion in Indonesia. By using deliberative democratic theory, this article views that the usage of bot accounts could prevent the objective achievement of democracy based on the 1945 Constitution. The authors recommend the regulation of bot accounts through the revision of Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Electronic Information and Transactions with bringing up various notable arguments regarding the law implementation. ©2020; This is an Open Access Research distributed under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://Creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original works is properly cited. INTRODUCTION The political discourse is an essential aspect of a nation's democratic life. It is necessary because through its existence the problems relating to the placement and management of power are discussed, debated, and clashed. Through a lively political discourse, starting from the planning process and policy implementation are being debated and the monitoring mechanism is ongoing. In addition, who is entitled and not entitled to hold particular positions, what words are worthy or unworthy to say, and what actions are appropriate or improper to take are still debatable. Therefore, in a democratic nation, the life of political discourse becomes one of the benchmarks