The military government of Thailand will attempt to persuade media firms Facebook and Line to comply with court orders to take down content it deems a threat to peace and order, a senior official revealed last Sunday.
The government has received court orders to remove content that it considered damaging to the country and its monarchy.
Council member Major General Pisit Paoin said in an interview that the junta-commissioned NRSA advisory council is looking at meeting Facebook and Line executives in the next quarter to discuss the monitoring and removing of content deemed as threats to national security.
In the future, the two companies would be requested to comply quickly with such rulings, added Paoin.
The Thai army, which has been in power since May 2014, has previously attempted to get these social media outlets to remove political posts. Although its efforts were mostly ineffective, thousands of Internet sites with lese majeste content had already been blocked under the anti-Royal Insult law.
The Thai government, too, had made a similar content removal request to Google – owner of YouTube – last Jan. 22.
Last Friday, a former politician and member of the party of deposed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was charged with the violation of the Computer Crime Act, particularly for sharing a video that appeared to mock junta leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha.
The numbers of civilian arrests under the laws crafted against criticisms of Thailand’s monarchy have sharply risen.
Breaking the record for the severity of punishment under these laws is the 60-year prison sentences handed over to Phongsak S. for six specific messages posted on his Facebook account.
Using the name “Sam Parr” on the social site, Phongsak was convicted under military court for six actions ruled to be in violation of the Anti-Royal Insult Law, namely Facebook posts from Sept. 4, 2013 to Nov. 29, 2014.
“I am so resentful that innocent people were shot dead. The image of these bodies is so clear in my mind. When I think of them, I get so angry that I cannot control myself. And it was even worse when I was drunk,” partly read one of Sam Parr’s Facebook posts, which he is said to have published in the wake of the 2014 coup.
He was arrested December 2014 and convicted last August after being imprisoned for eight months.
The sentence of Phongsak, already reduced by half after his guilty pledge, surpassed the 50-year sentence of the Bangkok military court to Yai Daengdueat, which also rooted from Facebook posts.
Photo: Jacob Botter | Flickr
