Many of the 10 websites that were recently blocked publish news in English and Chinese since 2020 and contain articles on topics such as daily news, economics, technology, culture and politics.

But these sites are believed to be laying the groundwork for disinformation, based on threat research and cases overseas.

One of them, Alamak.io, published a comment that falsely claimed Singapore had allowed other countries to conduct their biological warfare research activities here.

Another site, zaobaodaily.com, uses a domain name that closely resembles legitimate Singapore-related websites, offering content that could mislead the public into thinking it reflects local views or official positions.

In Parliament, Mr Yip questioned how effective blockchains would be, given that tools such as virtual private networks exist to circumvent such restrictions.

He also said that blocking websites could lead to unintended consequences, such as driving traffic underground.

Ms Sun replied that the objective of blocking such sites is to protect users in Singapore from accessing and potentially being misled by these sites.

People who choose to bypass these protections to access such dubious content do so at their own risk, she said.

She added: “We cannot protect people who deliberately avoid protection.

“We must remind the public to remain aware and vigilant against potential foreign interference activities.”