Imagine a bustling, vibrant Jakarta, a city always alive with challenges and triumphs. Last year, in August and September 2025, a wave of protests swept across Indonesia. Initially, people were simply frustrated – grappling with economic hardship, the stark divide between rich and poor, and a particularly irksome proposal to increase politicians’ housing allowances. These were real, heartfelt grievances that started in Jakarta and quickly spread like wildfire to other cities, escalating into civil unrest after a tragic incident where a police armored vehicle fatally struck an online transportation driver. The nation was grappling with its own internal struggles, its people vocalizing their discontent.
But then, something murky began to stir beneath the surface. While everyday Indonesians were seeking to be heard, a shadowy online campaign emerged, attempting to twist the narrative. Researchers from local media outlets like Tempo magazine, Kompas.com, Suara.com, and Tribunnews.com, alongside the social media monitoring platform Drone Emprit, started digging. What they found, as part of an EU-backed media development program, was concerning: signs of “foreign information manipulation and interference.” It was as if someone overseas was pulling strings, trying to paint these very real, very Indonesian protests as something orchestrated by “foreign agents” and an attempt to spark a “color revolution” – a term often used to describe popular uprisings against established governments, implying external instigation.
The investigation unearthed hundreds of social media posts and online articles, nearly half of them in foreign languages, all pushing a similar narrative. These claims pointed fingers at Western entities, specifically naming the well-known American billionaire philanthropist George Soros and the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED), as the masterminds behind the unrest. It was a classic “blame the outsider” tactic, designed to delegitimize the legitimate grievances of Indonesian citizens and sow suspicion. The idea was to frame the protests not as genuine expressions of national discontent, but as a wicked plot concocted by foreign powers with ill intentions.
George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF), a frequent target of such allegations, swiftly denied any involvement. They clarified that their grants are dedicated to supporting human rights and democratic principles, not funding or organizing protests in Indonesia. Similarly, The Jakarta Post, after its own meticulous inquiry, found no evidence whatsoever connecting OSF to the funding, organization, or any other involvement in the protests that gripped the nation. This further exposed the manufactured nature of the online campaign, revealing it as a deliberate effort to spread disinformation rather than an accurate reflection of what was truly happening on the ground.
The researchers, after careful analysis, found strong indications that pro-Russia and pro-China actors might have been behind this coordinated online assault. This suggests a geopolitical game being played out on Indonesian soil, where internal social unrest was exploited and reframed to serve external agendas. These foreign actors, by portraying genuine local protests as externally funded “color revolutions,” sought to undermine public trust in democratic processes, discredit activists, and perhaps even destabilize the country for their own strategic gains.
Ultimately, this detailed investigation serves as a stark reminder of the complexities of the digital age. It highlights how easily genuine expressions of dissent can be hijacked and manipulated by external forces, turning internal struggles into a battleground for international influence. The story of the Indonesian protests of 2025, then, is not just about a nation grappling with its own challenges, but also about the insidious, often hidden, struggle against foreign information manipulation, where the truth itself becomes a casualty in a broader geopolitical game.