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View all search resultsMedia probe reveals disinformation behind ‘foreign-backed’ 2025 protests
A collective study into allegations of foreign influence behind last year's sweeping protests has instead uncovered what appears to be an anti-Western disinformation campaign.
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A massive crowd of protestors gather beyond graffiti that reads “police are killers” on Sept. 1, 2025, during a demonstration in South Sulawesi capital Makassar to demand an end to police brutality. (AFP/Daeng Mansur)
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ro-Russia and pro-China actors might have been involved in an online campaign that portrayed the August-September 2025 protests in Indonesia as an attempt by “foreign agents” to destabilize the country and trigger a “color revolution”, according to an investigative study by local media and social media researchers.
The collective probe by Tempo magazine, Kompas.com, Suara.com, Tribunnews.com and social media monitoring platform Drone Emprit, conducted as part of a European Union-backed media development program run by international nonprofit Internews, found indications of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) that aimed to frame last year’s sweeping protests as foreign-backed.
According to its findings, the disinformation campaign emerged amid nationwide protests in late August that initially began in Jakarta over economic hardships and the growing wealth gap, particularly a highly unpopular proposal to increase lawmakers’ housing allowance. As it spread rapidly to other cities, the protests escalated into civil unrest after a Jakarta Police armored vehicle ran over an online transportation driver, killing him.
Western funding?
The media probe identified hundreds of social media posts and online publications between Aug. 28 and Sept. 9 last year, nearly half in foreign languages, promoting claims that United States billionaire philanthropist George Soros and the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) were among Western entities behind the unrest.
Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) has denied funding or organizing the 2025 protests in Indonesia, saying that its grants are intended to support human rights and democratic principles.
The Jakarta Post found no evidence that the OSF funded, organized or was otherwise involved in the protests that swept through the nation.
