Western-funded “Fact-Checkers” Cover Up US Interference in Indonesia

• In this video, I respond to a recently received e-mail attempting to set me up for a smear piece trying to frame my work exposing US interference in Southeast Asia (and Indonesia in particular) as a “coordinated campaign” with “Russian media;”

• The author was Ika Ningtyas, a “fact-check coordinator” at Soros Open Society-funded Tempo in Indonesia. Ika Ningtyas has also worked for or coordinated with US government organizations like Voice of America, NED-funded organizations like Remotivi, as well as US and European government-funded organizations like Aliansi Jurnalis Independen;

• This represents an effort to attack people exposing the danger of US interference abroad and an attempt to protect opposition groups the US is funding and backing in targeted nations;

• The ability of the US to reach into a targeted nation’s political and information space represents a danger equal or greater than the threat of US military aggression – allowing the US to undermine and even overthrow governments without the US military firing a single shot;

• The vast networks the US builds up over years to achieve this eventually reach critical mass and by the time the targeted nation realizes something must be done, it is too late – making it important to expose this problem and address sooner rather than later;

References:

The New Atlas – Continuity of Agenda: US Targets Indonesia – Seeks to Punish Jakarta for Joining BRICS (Sep. 4, 2025):

Continuity of Agenda: US Targets Indonesia – Seeks to Punish Jakarta for Joining BRICS

Mongabay – ‘Without us, no scrutiny’: Indonesia’s independent media count cost of US funding cuts (Mar. 2025):
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/wit…

NED – Where NED Works:
https://www.ned.org/regions-2/

Guardian – US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev (2004):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/200…

NYT – U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings (2011):
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/wo…

RAND Corporation – Extending Russia (2019):
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand…

TEMPO – Tempo Responds to Prabowo’s Claims of Serving Foreign Interests (Jan 2026):
https://en.tempo.co/read/2082833/temp…

MDIF – Funders:
https://www.mdif.org/about/funders-an…

Open Society Foundations, Soros Economic Development Fund – Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF):
https://www.soroseconomicdevelopmentf…

Kompas.com – Homepage (scroll down to Poynter logo):
https://www.kompas.com/

Poynter – IFCN:
https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/

Poynter – Major Funders:
https://www.poynter.org/major-funders…

Project Multaatuli – Collaborations:
https://projectmultatuli.org/en/about…

Ika Ningtyas Contributions to US Government & US NED-funded Media

Tribun Makassar – Follow the Webinar on Media Literacy in the Digital Era by VOA (2021):
https://makassar.tribunnews.com/2021/…

Remotivi – DDoS, A New Way Of Silencing Critical Media (2022):
https://www.remotivi.or.id/headline/e…

VOA – Article 1 (Jan. 2024):
https://www.voaindonesia.com/a/aji-ke…

VOA – Article 2 (2023):
https://www.voaindonesia.com/a/indeks…

VOA – Article 3 (Feb. 2024):
https://www.voaindonesia.com/a/amnest…

ANFREL (NED-funded) – ANFREL highlights importance of media in informing the public, monitoring electoral processes to achieve free, fair and democratic elections (2023):
https://anfrel.org/anfrel-highlights-…