Thai Facebookers deactivate their accounts due to pro-junta policy

Thai academics and activists have announced that they will deactivate their Facebook accounts as a protest against Facebook Thailand for its compromise with the junta on censorship. Other activists are also looking for a new social media. 
 
In the past few weeks, many questions has been raised about Facebook’s security policy after one junta critic, abducted by the military on 27 April, confirmed that authorities had shown him a capture of his Facebook chat without knowing the password (read full story). Recently, Facebook has blocked a page satirizing the Thai monarchy from Thailand, citing local laws (read full story).
 
On Friday, 6 May 2016, at least two Thai users of Facebook posted on Facebook that they will deactivate their accounts since they are no longer satisfied with Facebook’s security policy.
 
Junya Yimprasert, a labour activist, posted that since Facebook has undermined their users’ privacy and freedom of expression by complying with the junta’s censorship, she will deactivate her account and she urged public to do the same.
 
“If Facebook prioritizes profit over freedom and compromises with the Thai junta, we have to deactivate our Facebook accounts as a protest and find other ways to communicate,” Junya said in her post.
 
Meanwhile, Kanda Naknoi, a Thai economist at the University of Connecticut, also posted on Facebook that she will deactivate her Facebook account within 77 days, saying that as a consumer, she should use social media that most satisfies her and she is totally dissatisfied with Facebook’s current policy.
 
She added that for those who want to follow her, she will open a new channel at www.minds.com.
 
Besides Kanda, other democracy advocates have also said that they are thinking about opening accounts on Minds, saying that it has better security than Facebook.
 
Chanoknan Ruamsap, an activist from the New Democracy Movement, posted on Facebook that ‘Minds claims to be a social media with better security. Let’s check it out’.
 
Viengrat Netipo, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, posted on Facebook ‘Facebook cooperates with the junta. Those who oppose the junta might be moving to other social media’. She also attached a link to the Minds website.  
 

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