Singapore blocks 10 fake websites ahead of elections to prevent ‘hostile’ disinformation campaigns

“These 10 inauthentic websites have been observed to masquerade as Singapore websites by spoofing or using terms associated with Singapore in their domain name and incorporating familiar local features and visuals,” the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a statement.

“They also carried content on Singapore, some of which were generated by artificial intelligence. These are common tactics used by malicious foreign actors: build websites which can attract a local following, that may subsequently be used as platforms to mount HICs,” it said, referring to hostile information campaigns.

Two of the websites use domain names closely related or similar to legitimate Singapore-linked websites.

They carried content “that may mislead their audience into thinking that the content is reflective of official positions or local sentiments,” MHA said.