Singapore faces 400-post Indonesia disinformation push

CNA Verify identified close to 400 late-October social-media posts spreading a false account of Singapore’s role in Indonesia, the outlet said in an explainer published Nov. 10.

CNA Verify’s Nov. 10 explainer said the episode, which included a false secret meeting with Singapore’s ambassador to Indonesia, followed about 500 TikTok clips from late 2025 to mid-2026 and nearly 300 YouTube videos at the start of 2026. Together, the cases put Singapore’s diplomacy, politics and economic narrative in the path of organised online influence operations.

CNA Verify classified the cases as disinformation, not misinformation. Both involve false or misleading material, but the difference is intent: disinformation is produced and distributed deliberately to cause harm, while misinformation is passed on without an intention to deceive.

In the Indonesia case, CNA said experts saw signs that “buzzers” may have been involved. The term refers to paid social-media users who push messages, swamp opposing views and amplify posts or comments to make a narrative appear more popular than it is.

Associate Professor Saifuddin Ahmed of Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information said some accounts remain quiet between public controversies or post harmless content to appear genuine. “They do this to build followers and look authentic. When the next issue becomes salient in the public or the media, they reactivate and adapt to the developing story,” he said.

CNA Verify said several investigations found signs of coordinated inauthentic behaviour, a term for accounts or pages working together toward a shared goal while hiding who they are or what they are doing. The outlet said no single indicator proves coordination by itself.

The indicators cited included accounts created almost at the same time, posts appearing seconds or minutes apart, repeated use of the same wording or visuals, and accounts boosting one another. In April, CNA Verify said five fake websites blocked by Singapore authorities had been registered within 24 seconds of each other. In a February campaign, some YouTube videos were posted at the exact same second and shared scripts, voice-overs or thumbnails.

The regional pattern is broader than Singapore. CNA said similar operators are known as “trolls” in the Philippines and “cybertroopers” in Malaysia, where the same basic tactic is used to promote political agendas and shape public opinion.

CNA also said not all such activity is human-driven. Bots, or accounts operated by computer programs, can behave in ways that people cannot, while AI-generated likenesses have appeared in previous investigations involving videos about Singapore.

Who ultimately directed the campaigns remains unresolved. CNA said evidence in some cases suggested accounts had a common operator or group of operators, but it could not establish their identities or whether they were acting for a company or government.