For months, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has warned that foreign forces are seeking to divide the country. Civil society organizations, journalists, academics and independent media have increasingly found themselves accused of serving outside interests or acting as "foreign agents."

The implication is clear: criticism of the government is not genuinely Indonesian but orchestrated from abroad. From speeches marking Pancasila Day to repeated warnings about "foreign lackeys," Prabowo has suggested that foreign powers are financing domestic critics to shape public opinion. Yet little evidence has been presented to substantiate these claims. Instead, they have become a recurring feature of official rhetoric, prompting concerns that legitimate democratic dissent is increasingly being portrayed as a threat to national security.

The irony is that this strategy may leave Indonesia less—not more—prepared to confront genuine foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI).

Imaginary Enemies, Real Consequences
Not every allegation of foreign involvement constitutes FIMI. The concept has a specific meaning. Increasingly adopted by democratic governments and international organizations, FIMI refers to coordinated, deceptive influence activities conducted by foreign state or state-linked actors to manipulate another country's information environment for strategic or geopolitical gain. Russia's information operations targeting elections in Europe and North America, or China's coordinated influence campaigns abroad, are among its best-known examples.

The current situation in Indonesia is fundamentally different.

There is no publicly available empirical evidence that criticism of the Prabowo administration by civil society organizations, think tanks, universities, journalists or ordinary citizens forms part of a coordinated foreign influence operation. Most criticism has emerged from domestic political disputes over military reform, environmental governance, corruption, budget priorities and democratic accountability. These are legitimate expressions of democratic participation—not evidence of foreign interference.

What Indonesia is witnessing is therefore not FIMI itself but the instrumentalization of a foreign threat narrative for domestic political purposes. Rather than foreign actors manipulating Indonesia's information space, domestic political actors are invoking the specter of foreign interference to delegitimize criticism and consolidate political authority. This distinction matters because misdiagnosing the problem inevitably leads to misguided policy responses.

Mistaking Dissent for FIMI
Conflating domestic dissent with foreign interference fundamentally misunderstands the nature of modern information threats.

Rather than identifying covert foreign influence campaigns, the government increasingly frames political opposition as a national security problem. Political scientists describe this as the securitization of dissent: issues that should be debated through democratic institutions are instead recast as existential threats requiring extraordinary responses.

Under this logic, journalists become suspected foreign operatives, researchers become agents of hostile governments, and civil society organizations become enemies rather than democratic partners.

Such rhetoric also distorts the public's understanding of FIMI itself. If every protest, policy critique or investigative report is portrayed as foreign-backed, the term loses analytical value. Citizens become less able to distinguish genuine foreign influence operations from ordinary democratic disagreement.

International experience offers ample warning. Russia's infamous "foreign agents" law was introduced in the name of transparency and national sovereignty. In practice, it evolved into a powerful instrument for stigmatizing independent media, civil society organizations and political opponents. Indonesia need not repeat that mistake.

The Cost of Crying 'Foreign Agent'
The risks are no longer merely rhetorical. They are increasingly institutional.

President Prabowo has gone beyond deploying the language of "foreign agents." His administration is drafting legislation to counter disinformation and foreign propaganda, arguing that hostile domestic and foreign actors are exploiting cyberspace to undermine Indonesia's national interests. Government officials have presented the proposed bill as a necessary instrument to safeguard Indonesia's information sovereignty and strengthen national resilience against information threats.

There is nothing inherently problematic about strengthening Indonesia's resilience against foreign information manipulation. Indeed, Indonesia faces genuine FIMI risks. Like many democracies, it is increasingly exposed to sophisticated influence operations originating from authoritarian states, particularly China and Russia. These campaigns rely on covert online networks, proxy actors, coordinated amplification and deceptive narratives designed to manipulate public opinion while concealing foreign attribution. Countering such operations requires rigorous attribution, technical expertise, intelligence cooperation and independent research—not political accusations against domestic critics.

The concern lies elsewhere. If legislation fails to clearly distinguish between genuine foreign information manipulation and legitimate domestic political criticism, it risks becoming a tool for suppressing democratic participation rather than defending national security. Rights groups and legal scholars have already warned that vague definitions of "disinformation," "foreign propaganda" or "foreign interference" could enable selective enforcement against journalists, researchers, civil society organizations and even Indonesian diaspora communities.

That would be a profound policy failure.

Repeatedly invoking "foreign agents" without substantiating the claims undermines the credibility of future FIMI policy. Intelligence agencies, regulators and researchers may struggle to gain public trust if anti-disinformation frameworks become associated with partisan politics rather than objective threat assessment. Worse still, resources may be diverted toward monitoring domestic critics while sophisticated foreign influence campaigns continue to evolve largely unnoticed.

A resilient democracy depends on independent journalists who expose covert influence campaigns, researchers who identify coordinated disinformation networks and civil society organizations that strengthen public accountability. Weakening these institutions does not enhance Indonesia's information sovereignty—it erodes it.

If Indonesia truly wishes to defend itself against foreign information manipulation and interference, it must resist the temptation to turn political criticism into evidence of foreign subversion. Otherwise, it risks fighting imaginary enemies while leaving itself vulnerable to the real ones.

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Dr Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is a co-author, serves as Director of the China-Indonesia Desk at CELIOS, and is also affiliated with positions at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, the London School of Economics’ IDEAS, and Busan University of Foreign Studies.

Yeta Purnama is a researcher at Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), whose work focuses on the evolving dynamics of China–Indonesia relations.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.

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