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SINGAPORE – Received a dubious text message that you think could be a scam or misinformation? Run it by a new service called Checkmate, where suspicious text messages, images and online videos can be verified via a WhatsApp bot. The service is one of several supported or developed by the new Centre for Advanced Technologies in Online Safety (Catos), which aims to including hate speech, misinformation and deepfakes. Catos comes under the Ministry of Communications and Information’s Online Trust and Safety Research Programme and is hosted by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research. It will focus on building and customising tools to detect harmful content. The centre will receive a total of $50 million in funding over five years under the Smart Nation and Digital Economy domain of Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 Plan. The amount includes a top-up of $30 million from the National Research Foundation to the initial $20 million announced in January. The increase in funding will help the centre expand its scope to provide a sandbox, or a controlled virtual space where developers can test solutions to online harms in real-world scenarios. Catos’ expanded scope of work will also include facilitating licensing and service agreements for solutions that have been found to be effective. Checkmate, for instance, was developed by a group of volunteers and launched in March 2023. It relies on a combination of natural language processing techniques, machine-learning algorithms and human checkers to verify information from users of the service. Checkmate’s developers hope to scale up the service, get more volunteer checkers on board, and in the longer term, register it as a non-profit organisation. Other projects developed by Catos include analysis engines that can detect emotions such as fear and anger, as well as hate speech, in online videos and posts, potentially flagging polarising exchanges before they escalate. The centre was officially launched during the inaugural Online Trust and Safety Forum, held at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore hotel on May 15. Communications and Information Minister Josephine Teo, who attended the launch, described the new centre as a “useful tool in our arsenal in the battle against online harms”. “Our aim is to accelerate the growth of the online trust and safety ecosystem here in Singapore, through agile and timely collaboration, joint experimentation and fine-tuning of solutions,” said Mrs Teo, who is also Minister-in-charge of Smart Nation and Cybersecurity. Checkmate founder Tan Bing Wen said the service could benefit greatly from being supported by Catos, adding that Checkmate is still in its early stages and largely volunteer-driven. For example, the service could benefit from automation through the use of artificial intelligence to assess the veracity of videos, which Checkmate still requires volunteers to watch to determine their authenticity. Catos is developing a suite of technologies, “some of which are very useful for our checkers”, said Mr Tan, 35. The forum also saw the signing of an agreement between Catos and American software giant Adobe to explore the implementation of content provenance technologies in Singapore, to verify the origin and authenticity of content such as videos or news articles. This is in line with the centre’s work in developing plug-ins and software solutions that can seamlessly include content provenance when publishing articles or images. Catos centre director Yang Yinping said: “An ecosystem approach is needed, and Catos will work closely with our partners from academia, industry, the public sector, and non-governmental organisations to develop advanced technological solutions that will contribute to realising Singapore’s vision for a safer online space for all.” The event was attended by more than 250 local and international online trust and safety experts, as well as thought leaders in areas such as policy and education.