Some Mac Book Pros banned on Thai Airways flights to the EU

Facebook has confirmed the removal of 185 accounts run by the Thai military and allegedly involved in information-influencing. The social media giant says the accounts were deleted for engaging in what it calls, “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”. In total, 77 accounts, 72 pages, and 18 groups have been removed from the platform, in addition to 18 Instagram accounts. It’s the first time Facebook has taken such action against accounts linked to the Thai government.

The accounts were associated with the Thai military and were targeting people in the southern provinces, Facebook said its regular report on coordinated inauthentic behavior. The south of the country has been the scene of decades-long conflict, with insurgent groups in the majority-Muslim, Malay-speaking region calling for independence. To date, around 7,000 people have died in the ongoing struggle.

Facebook says the deleted accounts were most active last year and used both fake and real accounts to manage pages and groups, both openly military pages and pages that hid their links to the military. Some of the fake profiles pretended to be people from the southern provinces.

The report mentioned a post by the now-removed account named “comprehending the operation” in Thai. The page posted the logo for Amnesty International Thailand and wrote “The NGO never cares about ordinary citizens because they have no role in society. Normal people are not famous. Any case is not big news. They are not worth the investment of foreigners so they will not do anything to help. This is why we don’t see anything from the NGO.”

Image overlay translates to “The NGO never cares about ordinary citizens because they have no role nor money.”

On another now-removed account, named “truth about my home Pattani” in Thai, a post said “Muslim leader declares southern border is a peace zone. The southern separatists started a movement by spreading the idea that Thailand is under control by different believers so that people would come and fight for their religion. This was declared that the action clearly violates Islam faith.”

Image overlay translates to “Southern border is not Jihad zone.”

When contacted by Reuters, the military had no comment on the removal of the Facebook accounts, with a spokesman saying the organisation does not comment outside of official press conferences.

The head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook, Nathaniel Gleicher, has confirmed the reasons behind the platform’s decision.

“This is the first time that we’ve attributed one of our takedowns to links to the Thai military. We found clear links between this operation and the Internal Security Operations Command. We can see that all of these accounts and groups are tied together as part of this operation.”

He adds that the accounts had spent around US$350 on advertising on both Facebook and Instagram. One or more of the pages had about 700,000 followers and at least one of the groups had 100,000 members. Gleicher says the accounts were removed because of their misleading behaviour and not because of the content being posted. The content included support for the military and the monarchy, with allegations of violence and criticism of insurgent groups in the south.

It’s not the first time accounts linked to the Thai military have been removed by a social media platform. In October, Twitter removed 926 accounts it says had links to the army and posted pro-military and pro-government content. The Thai army has denied any involvement with the accounts in question. In November, Twitter also suspended an account posting pro-monarchy content that was found to have links to the palace and to thousands of other accounts posting similar content.

To read the February 2021 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report, click HERE.

SOURCES: Reuters| Facebook

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Thailand’s broadband internet speed is ranking number 1 after a speed test was conducted in December of last year. It’s ranking climbed 2 spots from the previous speed test out of 176 countries by the Speedtest Global Index, beating out the stiff competition.

Singapore and Hong Kong are now at 2nd and 3rd place according to the test, which is measured monthly. The test uses millions of data from real people who use Speedtest tools. The test was developed by Ookla, which is a Seattle, Washington headquartered company that has pioneered fixed broadband and mobile network testing apps, analysis and data. Despite the tests being originated by a US company, the US ranks 10th on the list.

Thailand clocked an average fixed broadband speed of 308.35 megabits per second for downloads last month, beating out Singapore for the top spot. It ranked 3rd in November 2020. The global average fixed broadband speed was 96.43 megabits per second for downloads and 52.31 megabits per second for uploads in December.

On his Facebook page, Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta attributed the top ranking to the country’s fast development of telecom infrastructure and competition by local operators.

After AIS Fibre entered the market in 2015, it sparked more rivals to join in the race to install fibre optics for internet services, a move that replaced the older technology of ADSL network. AIS Fibre is a home broadband unit of mobile operator Advanced Info Service.

Pisut Ngamvijitvong, senior director of the analysis department at Kasikorn Securities says some operators still provide fixed broadband services through the old ADSL technology, but that every year the internet is getting faster and cheaper.

“Triple T Broadband provides around 30-40% of its service on ADSL and True Internet has around 20%.”

Thailand’s fixed broadband service sector has been increasing every year. In 2019, there were 10.1 million household subscribers to fixed broadband services. And, in 2020, the number was estimated at 11 million.

The Speedtest Global Index also ranks the mobile internet speed of 139 countries in which Thailand currently ranks 33rd as of December 2020. It moved up 11 spots in 1 month from November 2020 testing at 51.75 megabits per second for downloads. The UAE and South Korea followed in the rankings with 2nd and 3rd place respectively. The global average for mobile internet speed was 47.2 megabits per second for downloads and 12.67 megabits per second for uploads.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post

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So what’s going on with the new Mor Chana app?

As far as the Thai Government is concerned, it’s part of their fight to track and trace the Covid-19 virus during this current outbreak. More Chana is a contact tracing tool.

In essence, the app will allow you to check in when you go to different locations around Thailand, enter shops and buildings. As guests in the country, expats and travellers here should acknowledge that we have a role and responsibility to play in getting this current situation under control, as well as the Thais.

Of course you are well entitled to decide NOT to download and activate the app but the narrative from the government is that they see More Chana as an important part of their strategy. The app will also alert you when you are entering areas or provinces of potentially high risk. Being alert to these situations is like being alert to any other type of news.

So far, the application has been downloaded more than 3 million times

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