Thai Political Crisis Fuels Social Media Boom

[webfact]

Thai political crisis fuels social media boom

by Janesara Fugal

BANGKOK, October 24, 2010 (AFP) - When Thai authorities shut down his website, Sombat Boonngamanong turned to Facebook to share political views with fellow supporters of the "Red Shirt" opposition movement.

A year later he has two accounts and thousands of followers on the social networking site, which has become a popular platform for political debate in a country where opposition media have been silenced by the government.

"In Thailand, the Facebook boom has come at the perfect time given the political situation, because it became a convenient tool to avoid censorship," said Sombat, one of the few Red Shirt leaders not in prison or on the run.

"People can express their views freely on Facebook, especially Red Shirt people. Their other channels were blocked by the government," he told AFP.

While Facebook's success is a global phenomenon, debate over Thailand's political crisis has sparked particularly strong growth in the kingdom, which was rocked by deadly opposition street protests in April and May.

Helped by the launch of a Thai-language version, the number of Facebook users in the country has more than doubled since January and now stands at more than 5.7 million, according to Facebakers, which compiles data about the site.

That's almost nine percent of Thailand's population of about 67 million.

Thai journalist Noppatjak Attanon said the number of people logging onto Facebook and other social media sites such as Twitter surged during the unrest earlier this year because people were "hungry for news."

"Many people created groups on Facebook to express their political opinions and share them with people with the same ideas," said Noppatjak, a newspaper reporter with The Nation and a prolific Twitter user.

Politicians have been quick to recognise the potential of social networking sites. The government has even launched a scheme to teach lawmakers how to use them to reach out to voters.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has more than 480,000 fans on Facebook -- five times more than British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra also regularly uses Twitter to address his red-shirted supporters from self-imposed exile.

But using such sites is not without risks in a country where human rights groups are increasingly alarmed about restrictions on freedom of expression.

"Facebook has become the government's tool to monitor people, searching for its opponents and trying to block these people," said Supinya Klangnarong, an activist with the Thai Netizen Network.

In April, a Red Shirt sympathiser was arrested and charged for allegedly insulting the monarchy on Facebook -- a serious crime punishable by up to 15 years in jail. He remains in detention awaiting possible trial.

"Facebook is a new technology and we don't have any way to control it yet," said Chuti Krairiksh, minister of information and communication technology.

The government "respects the principle of freedom of expression," he told AFP. "But if people break the law then we can take measures against them."

Thousands of web pages have been removed in recent years on the grounds that they were insulting to the Thai royal family.

The editor of the popular Prachatai website could face up to 70 years in jail after she was arrested on charges of insulting the monarchy and breaching computer law -- for comments posted by users of the site.

Even teenagers can get into trouble: a 17-year-old contestant was forced to withdraw from a popular reality television show in July after posting scathing comments on his Facebook page about Abhisit.

"The problem in Thai society now is that we don't accept other people's opinions," said Supinya. "We don't accept the differences or freedom of expression. We forget that people can think differently."

It is a reflection of the deep political divide in Thailand, where 91 people died and nearly 1,900 were hurt in clashes between Red Shirts and troops during two months of protests, which ended with a bloody army crackdown in May.

Sombat's online activities have helped propel him into a high-profile role within the Red Shirt movement, organising weekly gatherings that have recently drawn thousands of supporters.

The authorities have used emergency powers to detain hundreds of Red Shirt suspects and shut down anti-government television channels, newspapers, radio stations and websites.

Sombat was arrested in June while tying a red ribbon on a signpost to commemorate members of his movement slain during the May military assault on their rally base in central Bangkok. He was released two weeks later.

Despite the media clampdown, thanks to sites like Facebook and Twitter political views can still be heard.

"In the past, the small voices of ordinary people were ignored by media," said Sombat.

"Facebook is an open space for these small people where they can express feelings, thoughts and also can read what's on other people's minds. It's a place for the small people to express their opinions," he said.

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2010-10-24

[asiawatcher]

Facebook has some very strange bedfellows including the CIA - check it for yourselves - big brother is watching! It does not stop me from being on it but it may be of some concern for others!

I also think people have a right to express themselves and their beliefs. Like Thaivisa, not everyone agrees and responses get aggravated from time to time but that is the nature of the beast. Viva freedom of speech!

[silp1979]

Facebook has some very strange bedfellows including the CIA - check it for yourselves - big brother is watching! It does not stop me from being on it but it may be of some concern for others!

I also think people have a right to express themselves and their beliefs. Like Thaivisa, not everyone agrees and responses get aggravated from time to time but that is the nature of the beast. Viva freedom of speech!

there is no freedom of speech on thaivisa, read the rules

Edited October 24, 2010 by silp1979

[Hitch22]

Facebook has some very strange bedfellows including the CIA - check it for yourselves - big brother is watching! It does not stop me from being on it but it may be of some concern for others!

I also think people have a right to express themselves and their beliefs. Like Thaivisa, not everyone agrees and responses get aggravated from time to time but that is the nature of the beast. Viva freedom of speech!

Freedom of speech in Thailand ?

I hope you get well paid for writing such lies .

[Buchholz]

"Facebook is an open space for these small people where they can express feelings, thoughts and also can read what's on other people's minds. It's a place for the small people to express their opinions," he said.

I thought the main purpose was for people to harvest corn on Farmville.

[LaoPo]

It's a bloody shame that a country like Thailand has a Government lead by -mind you- a Party called: Democratic Party and which Government is suppressing it's citizens for expressing their opinions.

Thailand went down from being #65 in 2002 to a shocking #153 in 2010 on the list of Reporters Without Borders.

A bloody shame!

http://www.thaivisa....dom-index-2010/

http://en.rsf.org/thailand.html

LaoPo

[Johpa]

The headline gets it arse backwards. It is the social media boon that fuels political crises around the globe. Power is a function of population X organization. The Internet and "social media" allow even the lowest common denominators to organize and there are far more intellectual dumbos down at the bottom than there are enlightened individuals elsewhere. Both the United States and Thailand serve as poster children for this phenomena. Twitter represents the inevitable pre-apocalyptic outcome that not even Orwell foresaw. The Internet is the virus.

[animatic]

It would be nice if many of those same citizens demanding un-limited freedom of speech didn't also think expressing those opinions also meant physically dragging the country into the mire and killing people so that others may be presumed to get angry and rise up against those who don't agree with them. Or more simply don't want to let them run rough shod across the bank accounts of enemies and treasury of all Thais.

Un-limited freedom of speech does not exist anywhere on the planet.

When long term misuse of words has created a deadly situation and great segments of a nation, base hatred, causing violence, on gross misinformation, there may be a practical need to stop dis-information. And replace it with something closer to the truth, and then at a more balanced time, return to a more egalitarian sense of freedom of speech.

I for one do not want to die at the hands of someone or many made crazy

by lies and innuendos. Regardless if those lies may have 15% truth in them.

Edited October 24, 2010 by animatic

[animatic]

The headline gets it arse backwards. It is the social media boon that fuels political crises around the globe. Power is a function of population X organization. The Internet and "social media" allow even the lowest common denominators to organize and there are far more intellectual dumbos down at the bottom than there are enlightened individuals elsewhere. Both the United States and Thailand serve as poster children for this phenomena. Twitter represents the inevitable pre-apocalyptic outcome that not even Orwell foresaw. The Internet is the virus.

Maybe a prescient comment.

I hope not.

Edited October 24, 2010 by animatic

[fstarbkk]

It is very hypocritical of the ICT minister to claim government support for freedom of speech, when the laws he refers to in the same sentence, especially in their overbroad enforcement practiced by his government, represent severe restrictions on that freedom. This government is by no means the only one that has been restricting freedom of expression under the pretext of state security or protecting the monarchy. But it is especially disappointing coming from a government lead by a prime minister who experienced true democracy and freedom of speech first hand, for a good part of his early life. He certainly knows better than to think that you can have a fair, free and open society without freedom of speech.

I would never advocate inciting violence or insulting the monarchy. But isn't it possible that, with a truly free and open discourse, people might be less inclined to manifest their opinions by holding a whole city hostage for weeks and expressing their feelings through rioting and looting?

[jayboy]

I know several highly educated foreigners (Oxford,Cambridge,Ivy League graduates), formerly extremely sceptical of the Red movement and its antecedents, who slightly against their expectations became more sympathetic following the crude and disgusting outpourings on Facebook and elsewhere by many blinkered Bangkok Sino-Thai residents, in some cases ludicrously lamenting the loss of shopping facilities more than their murdered fellow citizens (whom they had lambasted as water buffalo and monitor lizards before the blood was scarcely dry).

[hammered]

Social networking is a huge huge phenomenon and politics is a relatively small part of that. Social networking allows peopel to move beyond the controls put on them in life and be anything they want. Social networking linked to otjher online phenomena also undermine a lot of the structures and institutions we are used to.

Poltical control is just one thing that suffers at the hands of it all but throw in media and its ability to control, academia and its monopolies and social mores and lots more. People can now group and organize and exchange information (true or false) almost unfettered adn no government across the world likes it as it has moved beyond what the polity or their connected propaganda apparatuses of any country can control. Interesting times but this article misses the bigger picture