At the political level, according to Prof. Singh, threat actors may be testing the strength of the new PM, the new fourth-generation management team, and the Chinese community in Singapore, particularly those who recently immigrated here.
” More significant is the sense of insecurity for Singapore, at a time when our fourth-generation authority is just established”, he said. I believe they want to see what these new leaders will do in reply.
According to Mr. Faizal, whenever a nation is going through a significant political transition, other states with an interest in the country’s foreign and defense policy may turn to them to” carefully interfere” through proxy digital players.
” Guo and his members took advantage of the administration dispatch to manage their baseless allegations, because the intergenerational transfer, the first in 20 years, was in the limelight. A very high level of foreign multimedia attention was attracted during the transfer, according to Assoc Prof. Tan.
They even carefully capitalized on the US and China’s fierce geopolitical rivalry to promote the idea that Singapore is in China’s orbit and that the CCP has ambitions outside of China, he said.
BEYOND MAINSTREAM PLATFORMS
According to Dr. Carol Immediately, main research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies and alternative principal scientist at the Centre for Advanced Technologies in Online Safety, this most recent organized spread of deception by Guo’s system demonstrates that Singapore is not immune to international control.
She noted that even though social media accounts are blocked, like information could still be circulated in private conversations on messaging apps and other platforms like Discord.
Assoc Prof. Singh emphasized that impact activity on these less well-known website systems should also be monitored.
” For me as a security analyst, the difference between popular and non-mainstream has gone, it is over”.
He claimed that because” they are very sexy ( and ) much more juicy news come from them,” many of the platforms that catch people’s attention are not mainstream.
According to Mr. Singh, the message derived from Guo’s activities is very clear:” someone with money can do foreign disturbance either directly or indirectly.”
” We expose ourselves by involving ourselves abroad so passionately financially, politically and socially. Many so that the gap between the internal and external is nearly completely eliminated, he said of Singapore’s position in the world.
Assoc Prof. Tan noted that the authorities are not requesting that the social media platforms actually remove the content, so the guidelines issued by MHA just have a limited impact on Singapore.
” If you have a VPN or if you are abroad, you can still get that content”, he said.
” So in that sense, the access restriction path is metaphorical, because it’s not going to hinder Guo and his members”.
However, it is still important because it is one of FICA’s various measured tools for addressing this kind of danger, according to Assoc Prof. Tan.
COUNTERING SUCH Risks
” Some people might think that Guo has no intentions toward Singapore,” Guo said. However, that misses the mark by implying that Guo and his members are not interested in using Singapore, argued Assoc Prof. Tan. Any self-respecting position is not a good place to use themselves.
He claimed that Singapore is a highly sought-after target because the Singapore government deal with the issue of foreign interference in the same way they deal with violence.
According to him, “people think that we have great parliamentary tools and that we devote a lot of resources to addressing the issue of various types of foreign interference.”
Singapore will be a very appealing target for a foreign professional looking to test their tools, techniques, and innovations to see how well they do, according to the article.
For Assoc Prof. Singh, it was only a matter of time before FICA was operationalized in this way to deal with such a hazard.
” I think the new battle is not with guns. The new battle is in cyberspace, in this kind of sweet war. The majority of our population are digitised, so this is the area where the altering of the hearts and minds, influencing people, deception and transmission of propaganda, is taking location”, he said.
” Our actions must be very persuasive.” And I think we are. What we are doing is excellent. We need to, in truth, overload simply to make sure that it has a punishment value”, he added.