Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) President Datuk Yong Teck Lee claims there appears to be coordinated online campaigns originating from Malaya hoping to influence the coming 17th Sabah State Election (PRN17).
He said PRN17 is purely a Sabah election that should be determined solely by the people in the State. But organised disinformation efforts from outside Sabah continue to target local politics.
“PRN17 is a Sabah State Election that should have nothing to do with Malaya because it is an election solely about the mandate of Sabah people in electing our own Sabah Government. Yet, Sabah is being targeted by organised content campaigns created in Malaya,” Yong said in a statement.
According to him, deceptive campaigns had been active as far back as 2013 polls when social media first began to flourish, initially through manually created fake accounts.
By 2018, he added, about 80 per cent of social media attacks against SAPP were originating from Johor.
According to him, the new danger lies in how such operations have escalated with the use of AI-driven tools and coordinated accounts to unduly influence people, including Sabahans.
Yong said SAPP’s media team has detected swarms of fake social media profiles actively engaging in Sabah political discussions.
Some claim to be based in Dubai but regularly comment on Sabah issues, while another purported to be from “Tawao”, a deliberate misspelling of Tawau.
“There are also accounts with Malay names commenting in perfect Chinese, on top of many profiles linked to click-farms,” he said.
He cited a legal suit filed against DAP-sponsored portal roketkini.com on July 10 this year. Together with historian Stephan Gaimin and activist Asraf Amir, action was taken to challenge disinformation originating from the site, which was launched in 2011 by DAP leaders, including Lim Guan Eng.
He explained that the suit focused on a February 24 2013 article which falsely linked a photo of a fully armed Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) force to the Lahad Datu intrusion in Tanduo, Sabah.
“In reality, the image was from an unrelated conflict in southern Philippines. But the use of that image in roketkini.com during a national crisis created unnecessary fear,” he said.
Yong said the same misleading image was later cited in a book published by Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), showing how even respected institutions could fall victim to disinformation created outside Sabah.
“This is perhaps because DAP is now the biggest ruling partner in the Federal Government and, hence, its materials are deemed to be reliable and official,” he said.
Yong said less than 24 hours after the lawsuit was filed, the controversial article was removed from roketkini.com, leaving only an HTTP Error 404 page.
“This round one victory for Sabahans is dubbed ‘Hari ini bertindak, esok turun,’” he said.
Yong criticised both DAP and roketkini.com for showing no remorse or offering an apology despite their mistake.
“If not because of our legal action, the defendants would have continued to publish that misleading photo with impunity. As plaintiffs, we would have expected an apology and an undertaking not to repeat the same mistake. Instead, we are left with the feeling that DAP and roketkini.com believe they can get away with their mistakes,” he said.
He said PRN17 is purely a Sabah election that should be determined solely by the people in the State. But organised disinformation efforts from outside Sabah continue to target local politics.
“PRN17 is a Sabah State Election that should have nothing to do with Malaya because it is an election solely about the mandate of Sabah people in electing our own Sabah Government. Yet, Sabah is being targeted by organised content campaigns created in Malaya,” Yong said in a statement.
According to him, deceptive campaigns had been active as far back as 2013 polls when social media first began to flourish, initially through manually created fake accounts.
By 2018, he added, about 80 per cent of social media attacks against SAPP were originating from Johor.
According to him, the new danger lies in how such operations have escalated with the use of AI-driven tools and coordinated accounts to unduly influence people, including Sabahans.
Yong said SAPP’s media team has detected swarms of fake social media profiles actively engaging in Sabah political discussions.
Some claim to be based in Dubai but regularly comment on Sabah issues, while another purported to be from “Tawao”, a deliberate misspelling of Tawau.
“There are also accounts with Malay names commenting in perfect Chinese, on top of many profiles linked to click-farms,” he said.
He cited a legal suit filed against DAP-sponsored portal roketkini.com on July 10 this year. Together with historian Stephan Gaimin and activist Asraf Amir, action was taken to challenge disinformation originating from the site, which was launched in 2011 by DAP leaders, including Lim Guan Eng.
He explained that the suit focused on a February 24 2013 article which falsely linked a photo of a fully armed Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) force to the Lahad Datu intrusion in Tanduo, Sabah.
“In reality, the image was from an unrelated conflict in southern Philippines. But the use of that image in roketkini.com during a national crisis created unnecessary fear,” he said.
Yong said the same misleading image was later cited in a book published by Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), showing how even respected institutions could fall victim to disinformation created outside Sabah.
“This is perhaps because DAP is now the biggest ruling partner in the Federal Government and, hence, its materials are deemed to be reliable and official,” he said.
Yong said less than 24 hours after the lawsuit was filed, the controversial article was removed from roketkini.com, leaving only an HTTP Error 404 page.
“This round one victory for Sabahans is dubbed ‘Hari ini bertindak, esok turun,’” he said.
Yong criticised both DAP and roketkini.com for showing no remorse or offering an apology despite their mistake.
“If not because of our legal action, the defendants would have continued to publish that misleading photo with impunity. As plaintiffs, we would have expected an apology and an undertaking not to repeat the same mistake. Instead, we are left with the feeling that DAP and roketkini.com believe they can get away with their mistakes,” he said.