Last week, the Select Committee released a report on its recommendations for countering deliberate online falsehoods. The recommendations focused on disrupting online falsehoods, countering threats to national security and sovereignty, nurturing an informed public, promoting fact-checking, and reinforcing social cohesion and trust.

The virulent effects of the problem, as observed in the region and internationally, bring to mind what had happened in 2003. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) broke out in Singapore when a young woman who had been infected by the virus abroad set off a series of transmissions upon her return.