Community's Role Key in Battle Against Disinformation in GE2025

Regulation cannot fully shield public from harmful content, foreign meddling: Experts

- Hariz Baharudin

What kind of disinformation and foreign meddling might surface when Singapore heads to the polls in the 2025 General Election? The spread of fake news and external influence is almost inevitable during elections, and the Government has strengthened its legal framework to counter these threats.

Yet, no amount of regulation can fully shield Singapore from the misinformation that often accompanies elections, experts told The Straits Times. Protecting the electoral process, they said, requires not just strong laws but also a vigilant and informed public.

Singapore is an attractive testing ground for foreign actors refining their interference tactics, said Singapore Management University (SMU) law professor Eugene Tan. "We are seen as a most suitable target for malicious foreign actors to have a go, to try out their capabilities, and to improve their counter-measures," he said.

The country's high internet penetration and social media use further increase its vulnerability, said Dr Natalie Pang, head of the communications and new media department at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Nearly 99 per cent of Singapore households have internet access, while 97 per cent of residents own smartphones, according to a November 2023 Infocomm Media Development Authority study.

"Due to anonymity afforded by the internet as well as the presence of encrypted platforms, it can make it much harder to detect disinformation campaigns and limit its dissemination," Dr Pang said.

These threats have already affected elections elsewhere. Dr Pang pointed to QAnon, a conspiracy theory movement that emerged on 4chan, an anonymous online forum, in 2017. Its false narratives spread across platforms and influenced voters in the 2020 US presidential election.