By Aqil Hamzah for The Straits Times
Copyright tnp
It functions just like any other news website, with its landing page showing the latest headlines and the day’s top reads.
Except that all the content published on The News Singapore is copied from local news outlet CNA, then credited to its press room.
At times, it would also omit lines from the original story, like in the case of a Sept 15 business commentary about Singapore’s stock market written by Mr Ven Sreenivasan, a veteran journalist who has covered finance for more than 30 years.
The version put up by The News Singapore that same day contained only the last third of the article, and despite being “written” by its press room, included a biography of Mr Sreenivasan at the bottom.
Though checks by The Straits Times found the site lacks links or any input field to key in personal information, and does not appear to be a phishing site, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said it is monitoring the website.
“We will not hesitate to act against inauthentic websites if it is in Singapore’s interest to do so.”
The ministry also stressed the need for constant vigilance when consuming content online, and warned Singaporeans to be mindful of sites which could be fake.
A search of The News Singapore’s domain history showed that it was registered on Feb 20, 2022, by an individual named Namrata Thakkar.
There was no other discernible information, and a search on LinkedIn found several pages of individuals with the same name.
Many of the articles put up on its website appeared shortly after the originals were published, which Mr Alexander Ivanyuk, senior director at cyber-security firm Acronis’ Threat Research Unit, said could be the work of automated scripts or bots to copy text and images from the source immediately.
As to why the website would try to pass off CNA articles as its own, he said doing so would make it appear credible, and in turn attract unsuspecting readers who would click to read the articles. The increase in page views would allow it to monetise the traffic.
“It’s a common tactic among so-called scraper sites, which rely on borrowed reputation to boost their visibility in search engines and to lure advertisers.”
ST has sought comment from Mediacorp.
The News Singapore website also included social media links, which did not work. Clicking on them only opened a new tab instead of a social media page.
This was a detail worth noting, said Mr Ivanyuk, who described it as a common tactic used by fraudulent or low-quality websites attempting to appear like established brands, as they give the impression that the website has a broader digital footprint.
ST understands that the site is also not licensed under the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s Online News Licensing Scheme, which requires news websites to obtain a licence if they fulfil two criteria.
These are: if they report an average of at least one article per week on Singapore’s news and current affairs over a period of two months, and are visited by at least 50,000 unique local IP addresses each month over a period of two months.
Licence holders are required to take down content that breaches certain standards within 24 hours of being notified, a 2013 news report said, with examples cited including content that may offend religious sensitivities.
The only other detail that could offer any information was the photo accompanying every single article byline on The News Singapore.
A reverse image search found that it had also been used on a website called British Bulletin, which would copy and paste articles from British news outlets.
Similar to its Singapore counterpart, it also had social media links that led to nowhere, with both sites sharing the exact same privacy policy and terms of use pages, save for a difference in their names.
The British Bulletin’s domain registration information meanwhile showed the third party domain registrar it had filed with, as any personal information had been masked for privacy.
