Since President Prabowo took power in October 2024, state officials have repeatedly resorted to harmful and stigmatizing mis- and disinformation online, relying on unsubstantiated ‘foreign agent’ allegations as an authoritarian practice to target critics, including civil society actors.
Such mis- and disinformation has served to deflect criticism on a range of issues and recast dissent not as a legitimate expression of grievances rooted in social, economic, or political conditions, but as the product of manipulation by hidden foreign forces.
This report exposes the role of state and state-aligned actors in weaponizing such mis- and disinformation against civil society actors as ‘foreign agents’ in the digital space during the first 18 months of the Prabowo administration. It examines the interplay between online mis- and disinformation and offline forms of violence, analyses the resulting human rights harms, including their chilling effect, and assesses the role of social media companies in contributing to these harms.
Read “Building Up Imaginary Enemies”: Misinformation, Disinformation, and ‘Foreign Agent’ Allegations in President Prabowo’s Indonesia.