SINGAPORE, July 19 (Reuters) – Singapore has ordered
five social media platforms to block users in the city-state
from accessing 95 accounts mostly linked to exiled Chinese
tycoon Guo Wengui, the government said on Friday.
The direction was issued to X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
and Tiktok under the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act
on accounts that published more than 120 posts between April 17
and May 10 on Singapore’s leadership transition.
The posts alleged Singapore was “in the pocket of a foreign
actor, and that the foreign actor was behind the scenes in the
selection of Singapore’s fourth generation leader”, the Home
Affairs Ministry said in a media statement.
They were published in a coordinated manner, it said.
Singapore had on May 15 sworn in Lawrence Wong as its fourth
prime minister.
Guo, who was linked to 92 of the 95 accounts, is an exiled
Chinese businessman and an outspoken opponent of Beijing’s
communist government. He was on Tuesday convicted in the U.S. on
charges of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from online
followers.
He is a former real estate developer who left China in 2014
during an anti-corruption crackdown. Guo had paid former Donald
Trump adviser Steve Bannon $1 million as part of a consulting
contract designed to lend legitimacy to his anti-Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) movement.
Guo and Bannon launched a right-wing movement called the New
Federal State of China in 2020 with a stated aim of overthrowing
China’s CCP as the Chinese government.
Singapore’s home affairs ministry said Guo and his
affiliated organisations – the New Federal State of China and
the Himalaya Supervisory Organisation – have posted a variety of
other Singapore-related narratives.
“The network’s coordinated actions and precedent of using
Singapore to push its agenda have demonstrated its willingness
and capability to spread false narratives that are detrimental
to Singapore’s interests,” the ministry said.
It said there are grounds to believe that Guo’s network
would use the 95 accounts to mount hostile information campaigns
targeted directly at Singapore that can “undermine sovereignty
and social cohesion”.
(Reporting by Xinghui Kok; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
