Members of Parliament (MPs) Darryl David (Ang Mo Kio GRC), Hany Soh (Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC) and Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Neo Kok Beng filed questions about the 14 online posts that targeted the Indian community, which alleged that Singapore was being overrun by Indians.
Answering their questions, Minister of State for Home Affairs Goh Pei Ming said there is currently no evidence to suggest that the posts were a coordinated campaign by any particular Government or organisation.
Earlier investigations by MHA showed that the content most likely originated from a platform based in China and was subsequently carried on other platforms and websites.
MP Darryl added two supplementary questions: whether the government is tracking cases that indicate the possibility of coordinated efforts by organisations and agencies that aren’t made public, and, if these influences show evidence of state actors, what actions would our government typically take.
In response to the first question, Minister Goh said the government does track these cases but some of the information is not suitable for release to the public.
He says the authorities will not hesitate to take action decisively if there is a need to protect Singapore’s interests, such as through legislative levers such as the Foreign Interference Counter Measures Act, Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act, Protection from Online Falsehood and Manipulation Act and Online Criminal Harms Act.
“Having these laws allow us to be very proactive going upstream to demonstrate that we not only have the laws and that we are also willing to exercise these laws to protect our citizens and our social fabric before our racial harmony is affected,” he says.
NMP Neo also asked what are the programmes and initiatives, aside from the laws in place such as POFMA, that are preventative in nature and how effective are they in preventing citizens from succumbing to the malicious intentions.
In response, Minister Goh said that the laws themselves have been helping Singapore to be increasingly proactive in tackling these issues. In his original statement, he also spoke about resources like the website SG101, National Library Board’s SURE programme (Source-Understand-Research-Evaluate) and workshops conducted by MDDI for civil servants, national servicemen and students, on the issue of foreign inteference.
He added that ultimately a discerning population is the most important defence against attempts to influence or divide Singaporean society, urging Singaporeans to be discerning when consuming and disseminating information online, and to reject all attempts at division.
