Manipulated clip of Indonesia leader announcing video games in schools misleads online
- Published on July 1, 2026 at 06:30
- Updated on July 1, 2026 at 06:31
- 2 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has faced criticism over his frequent overseas trips and for unveiling new foreign language policies, but a video of him purportedly saying a popular video game will now be part of the school curriculum is false. The clip was actually taken from footage of his visit to France in May 2026 when he announced that Indonesian schools will teach French. Analysis using an AI detection tool indicates that the audio was manipulated.
"I have now instructed that all levels of schools in Indonesia must learn to play Dota," Prabowo appears to say in Indonesian in a TikTok video posted on June 19.
The video shows Prabowo speaking at what appears to be a podium bearing the Elysee emblem, which then cuts to footage from the online game Defense of the Ancients (Dota).
"President Prabowo: All schools in Indonesia must learn to play Dota," reads Indonesian-language text overlaid on the video.
The clip circulated as Prabowo faces blowback over what critics describe as excessive spending on official overseas trips, which he has defended as necessary to maintain friendly relations with other countries (archived link).
"A thousand friends are too few. One enemy is too many. This is the path I choose. I have good relations with President Putin, and I also have good relations with President Trump," he said, referring to Russia's Vladimir Putin and the United States' Donald Trump.
The public has also questioned policies he unveils during the trips, including an announcement after meeting President Emmanuel Macron in Paris in May that French would be taught in "all levels" in Indonesian schools (archived link).
Similarly, he proposed making Portuguese one of the priority foreign languages taught in Indonesian schools during Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's visit to Jakarta in 2025 (archived link).
Commenters appeared to believe the announcement in the false video is genuine, with one saying: "The president is so stupid, he can't even be helped," while another lamented: "This is getting crazier."
However, the clip, which has also spread on Facebook and TikTok, is manipulated.
A reverse image search and keyword searches on Google led to a longer video uploaded by the Indonesian Presidential Secretariat's YouTube channel showing the full speech he made during a visit to France on May 28 (archived link).
The same scene appears at the 59:25 mark, where he can be heard saying: "I have instructed that all levels of Indonesian schools must learn French, considering the future global developments."
At no point during his speech did Prabowo say that students in Indonesia would be required to learn or play video games.
The AI detection tool Hiya in the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify, has also flagged the portion of the audio in which Prabowo purportedly instructed Indonesian students to learn to play online games as AI-generated.
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation related to the Indonesian president.
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