\nA public relations website advertising services for brands to build credibility through supposedly legitimate news sites, all run by the same company.<\/p>\n
PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM PRCHINA.COM.CN<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Not much else is known of the individual, who is linked to some 15 companies, many of which appear to be media-related.<\/p>\n
Chinese database results also describe this individual as the editor-in-chief of a news website called Daily Economic, as well as being an independent media personality in the field of finance and economics.<\/p>\n
The Singapore Times website describes itself as having \u201cno official background\u201d and belonging to the \u201cInternational Business News series\u201d. In an article published on its site, it also says it has \u201chigh monthly visits, covering global business readers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Checks on internet traffic analytics website Semrush which shows data from the last six months reflect that the site had about 830 visitors in October 2025, before declining to two-digit figures since January 2026.<\/p>\n
The other five sites \u2013 singaporeheadline.com, singaporeweek.com, singapore24hour.com, nanyangweekly.com and singaporebuzz.com \u2013 are registered in the Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory. <\/p>\n
All five were registered within a 24-second window on March 28, 2021 using a privacy protection service based in Iceland that substitutes a registrant\u2019s information with the third party\u2019s.<\/p>\n
This was later updated to Guangdong, China, between April and June 2023, before switching out to the British overseas territory at various points in 2024. <\/p>\n
Other identifying information about their owners remain redacted for privacy. <\/p>\n
While they posed as unique sites with different domain names, the websites all hosted content taken from mainstream news sites in Singapore as well as overseas outlets such as the Sydney Morning Herald and the Press Trust of India.<\/p>\n
They also featured similarly worded privacy policies that had matching details, such as Dec 1, 2020 being the last time they were updated.<\/p>\n
The privacy policies and about me sections were flagged by several tools as written by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Checks also found that the e-mail addresses listed on the sites were invalid and one of them had a physical address listed as 123 Orchard Road, #10-01, Singapore 238888, which does not exist.<\/p>\n
There is no building that corresponds to that address, and the postal code points to an art school at 31 Orchard Road.<\/p>\n
The Jiangsu company shows similarities to another public relations company, Shanghai Haixun, which was identified by disinformation researchers in 2024 as having links to a global web of inauthentic news sites, said Mr Benjamin Ang, Head of the Centre of Excellence for National Security at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).<\/p>\n
Then, Mr Ang and other researchers from RSIS found links between two sites masquerading as authentic Singapore news websites and Haixun, which was later named in a separate Google investigation as part of a network of four firms operating more than a thousand of such inauthentic news websites. <\/p>\n
These websites were also found to have published thematically similar, inauthentic content that emphasises narratives aligned to the political interests of the People\u2019s Republic of China, said a November 2024 Google report on their investigation. <\/p>\n
These two news sites were also later named in a group of 10 blocked by the Singapore authorities in 2024, also for the potential to be used in hostile information campaigns. <\/p>\n
Mr Ang said the team found that businesses pay websites like these to publish press releases or favourable stories about their products or services, to make them appear more credible to investors or customers. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou could call them \u2018news for hire\u2019 or as Citizen Lab calls them, \u2018disinformation-for-hire\u2019 companies, driven by revenue, not ideology, who tend not to be discerning about the motivations of their clients,\u201d said Mr Ang, who is also a senior fellow at RSIS. \u201cIt is possible that anyone from anywhere could use them for scams or influence campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citizen Lab is a research unit based in the University of Toronto which studies and investigates internet openness and security.<\/p>\n
Mr Ang said his team has not focused on connecting this new set of websites to any larger network, but they look more convincing than the 10 websites the Government previously blocked in 2024. <\/p>\n
He cited more attractive graphics and a lack of grammatical errors, and noted that the sites had also hidden the identities of their true owners by registering domains with privacy protection and using US-based hosting services.<\/p>\n
The threat they could pose to Singapore is presently hidden because they appear to contain neutral and non-controversial stories, he said. \u201cBut this makes them appear more credible, so that if in future they feature propaganda, false information, or even scams, then it will be harder to distinguish from the \u2018real\u2019 stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
It costs little to copy a large amount of authentic content that is fact-based, credible, verified, well-sourced and well-written, in order to make the website look credible, Mr Ang said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis will pay off in future, because an influence operation can post false, biased, or outrageous stories, which then appear more credible because the website as whole appears credible,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The Ministry of Home Affairs had said on April 23 that the reach of the six sites blocked was low and that there was no evidence of any attempt to launch a hostile information campaign.<\/p>\n
In the statement announcing their move to block the six sites, the authorities noted that most of these websites became active only after the Writ of Election was issued on April 15, 2025, before the 2025 General Election. <\/p>\n
On whether this was a deliberate attempt to influence the election, Mr Ang said it is difficult to conclusively form a judgement on this without other evidence.<\/p>\n
Research shows these types of sites are prepared for many countries, not just Singapore, Mr Ang said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf a hostile information campaign is mounted, it could look like what we\u2019ve seen in cases like the US, where a seemingly innocent-looking \u2018news\u2019 website starts publishing false, biased, or outrageous stories that target race, religion, gender, or other issues, which are in turn shared widely through fake accounts on social media and chat groups,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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