Rahmat Wibowo vs. Rizaldy Al Kautsar: A Cease-and-Desist Over Online Comments
This post describes a formal legal notice (somasi) I sent on 29 August 2026 to a person I have identified, based on public information, as Rizaldy Al Kautsar U., a Carnegie Mellon University student. I have not filed a police report over this matter as of this writing — this is a cease-and-desist letter and a documented dispute, not a criminal or civil proceeding. Identification of the account holder is based on my own correlation of a public LinkedIn profile with an anonymous/pseudonymous forum account and an X (Twitter) account; it has not been confirmed by any platform, court, or investigator, and the person named has not had a chance to respond in this post. Nothing here is a finding of fact or of guilt, and I am not asserting that Rizaldy Al Kautsar U. is in fact the person behind these accounts — only that I believe, on the evidence available to me, that he reasonably may be.
What I say happened
On a public online forum thread ("f/KawalRahmatWibowo"), an account using the display name "Carnegie Mellon University" and the handle "huang" — with Carnegie Mellon's seal as its profile picture — posted two comments about me around 27–29 August 2026. Read together, they called me unemployed, mocked me as a "weirdo," referenced a social-assistance meal program in a way I read as demeaning about my financial situation, and mocked a legal notice (somasi) I had sent to someone else as empty theater. The comments received several likes from other forum users.
Separately, I found a 9 May 2026 post on X (Twitter) from an account "@rzrizaldy" (display name "μ"), which quote-tweeted a third-party campaign account's post containing a serious, unsubstantiated claim about me, adding its own comment that restated as fact that I had repeatedly been "dismissed without honor" from work. I have no evidence that claim is true, and I am not aware of any basis for it.
Why I believe these accounts belong to Rizaldy Al Kautsar U.
I identified the forum account and the X account by comparing them to a public LinkedIn profile under the name "Rizaldy Al Kautsar U.," a Carnegie Mellon University Analytics & AI Policy student based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with listed affiliations to Carnegie Mellon, EcoFlow, and Telkomsel. The X handle "rzrizaldy" resembles that name, and I have no direct admission or platform confirmation tying either account to him. My own internal case analysis, written before I decided how to proceed, explicitly flags this identification as "reasonably suspected" rather than confirmed, and says definitive confirmation would require an official data request to the platforms involved — a step that has not happened.
The somasi I sent
On 29 August 2026, I sent a legal notice (Somasi No. 011/SOMASI/RW/IX/2026) addressed personally to Rizaldy Al Kautsar U., with a copy sent to Carnegie Mellon University's Office of Community Standards & Integrity and Title IX Office — not as an accusation against the university, but as a notice that its name and logo appeared to have been used by a student without disclosing it was a personal account, and a request that the university consider it under its own conduct policies. The letter cited Indonesia's new Penal Code provisions on written defamation (Pasal 433) and slander (Pasal 434), aggravated for use of information technology (Pasal 441), and asked for removal of the comments, a change to the account's display name and photo, a public apology, and damages, with a deadline of 1 September 2026.
That deadline passed without a response, payment, apology, or content removal that I'm aware of. My internal analysis treats the lack of any response as relevant to assessing intent, but is explicit that several elements — particularly whether any specific claim was known to be false at the time it was made — would need further investigation before any formal report could be pursued, and is not a substitute for an investigator's or court's own assessment.
Where things stand
As of this writing, I have not filed a police report or a lawsuit over this matter. I sent a somasi, the response deadline passed, and I have an internal legal analysis recommending that I consider a police report next. I'm publishing this account because I believe it's a fair, factual record of the dispute as I understand it, not because any legal process has concluded anything. If Rizaldy Al Kautsar U. is not, in fact, the person behind these accounts, or has an explanation I haven't accounted for, I have no way to reflect that here, and I'd welcome hearing it directly. For more on how Indonesia's electronic information law actually works in practice, see my explainer on the ITE Law.
#DefamationLaw #IndonesiaLaw #KUHPBaru #OnlineHarassment #CeaseAndDesist #CarnegieMellon
Rahmat Wibowo, Founder & CEO, InfraLoka — infraloka.co.id