Commenting on the formation of Kawal COVID-19 (Guard against COVID-19) by a group of volunteer data scientists and health experts, SMU Assistant Professor of Humanities (Education) Charlotte Setijadi said, "Kawal COVID definitely came about because of distrust towards the information provided by the government, at least in the initial stages." She added, "Generally, people don't believe the data that the government provides, even now, so this is why we see grassroots efforts to filter out the fake news from reliable information."