Quora Presents Indonesian Version to Encourage Public Knowledge

The information and knowledge sharing platform Quora is now officially supporting the Indonesian language. If we access the Quora site from Indonesia, there is an option to access content in Indonesian. This is the first version for the Southeast Asia region.

According to Quora Engineer Manager Veni Johanna, it is believed that Indonesian language support can encourage users in the country to contribute to the dissemination of information and knowledge, especially young people.

"Indonesia is one of the largest markets where access to information and knowledge on the internet is still difficult. Moreover, there are many internet users in Indonesia and are active on social media," said Veni.

In its launch in Jakarta, Wednesday (30/5/2018), Veni also revealed that the addition of languages ​​on his platform is in line with Quora's mission to spread and develop quality world knowledge.

To provide this quality information, Quora emphasizes the importance of credibility values ​​that users must comply with, such as real name, credentials and biographical policies, to links to other social media profiles.

Other than that, Quora Prioritize the policy of courtesy between users and user anonymity if the questions asked are related to sensitive issues or topics.

On the same occasion, academics, technology observers, and Quora user Budi Rahardjo considered that the presence of Indonesian language support could encourage many students to be willing to contribute questions and provide comprehensive answers.

"As an academic who also uses Quora, I find the desire or nuance to be better by helping answer questions," said the man who is also active as a blogger.

Meanwhile, Indonesian language activist Ivan Lanin thinks that Quora has more value in the questions asked between users. Please note, questions asked on Quora must be structured.

"On Quora, [writing] questions cannot be random. This is the strength of Quora. Well, because of this, questions on Quora often appear in Google search results, making it easier for users who want to find answers or information," he said.

Quora was founded in 2009 by former Facebook Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Adam D'Angelo. This Mountain View, California-based company is supported in seven languages ​​with more than 200 million unique visitors per month.

Combine technology and people to resist hate speech

Quora also has its own way of preventing the spread of hate speech content (hate speech) on the platform. Combining the power of technology and community, Quora believes both of the above can counteract the existence of such content.

"We combine machine learning and humans to detect those contents. It worked quite well, machine learning we can detect content that contains hate speech," said Ven.

Even so, if this kind of content is found on an Indonesian language platform, Quora will do the same. Quora will place people who have an understanding of the Indonesian language to moderate content.

"We believe a strong mix of technology and community can counteract this content."