Thai government wants Facebook to remove ‘harmful’ content

Officials from the Thailand's  National Council for Peace and Order military government, are set to meet with executives from Facebook and Korean search provider, Line, in order to discuss censoring their sites. The content it wants removed without fail is anything that could be considered harmful to the monarchy, or affects peace and order in any way.

This is par for the course for the military junta currently in control of Thailand. It has made several major changes since coming to power following its coup d'etat in 2014, including censoring all traditional forms of media, banning political gatherings and blocking certain internet content. However as many people in developing countries use Facebook as a source of international news, it now wants to censor that as well.

Source: Brian Sols

This does not represent the first time it has contacted a social network to try and enforce its own ideals on the platform. In mid-January, representatives of the government met with Google to try and censor some of the content on Youtube and some of its other related sites.

As Reuters points out, the government there has also been cracking down on individuals, with one former politician from the deposed political party recently arrested and charged for sharing a video online that criticised and mocked the current leader of the junta.

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KitGuru Says: Fingers crossed the Thai government isn't successful in its endeavours here. You just know there are those in the West that would love to attempt something similar for “harmful”, content too.

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