Who are the posts for?
In the Indonesian case, false claims about a meeting with Singapore’s ambassador made up about 2 per cent of posts by a network of TikTok accounts. The rest of the time, the accounts posted about Indonesian domestic programmes and politics instead.
This fits the view of experts, who believe the campaigns were meant to both silence critics and rally supporters at home.
In CNA Verify’s other investigations, it was harder to say whom the posts were meant for, though educated guesses were possible.
Campaigns conducted in Mandarin, for instance, may have been aimed at Chinese speakers in Singapore or abroad. Where such content attacked Singapore, the objective may have been to cause domestic uncertainty or shake confidence in how the country is run.
Whether and how many real people actually believed the false claims, or changed their views because of them, remains unclear.
Indonesian news outlet Tempo examined what is believed to be the first post spreading the false meeting claim, and found that most comments under it were sceptical.
But empirical evidence shows that some people do get affected, said Assoc Prof Saifuddin. He pointed to a recent study showing that some respondents in both Singapore and Indonesia had fallen for haze-related deepfakes.
“When disinformation is repeated on social media, it makes false claims appear more familiar and credible over time,” said the political communication researcher. “If you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes true for some audiences.”
The worry, he added, is not of entire populations being swayed, but that some vulnerable groups will be – and that trust will slowly be eroded.