Business
Villa Market opens Boat Lagoon branch

PHUKET: The doors to Villa Market’s third branch on the island open on March 20 with the Grand Opening Ceremony in Boat Lagoon taking place on March 27.
The grand opening, organized by Kanittha Prasopsirikul from ‘By Kanittha’, will be the highlight of the Boat Lagoon’s monthly Lighthouse Market, which offers a variety of vendors the opportunity to showcase their wears and services – something that Villa Market plans to start participating in either this month or next.
Villa Market’s Boat Lagoon branch will be classified as a “C” store with about 900 square meters of space, of which about 750sm will be retail – making it smaller than both the “A” class Chalong and Cherng Talay (Laguna) branches.
Despite the smaller size, the store will be no different than either of the other stores, Villa Market Area Manager Adrian Lanter confirmed to the Phuket Gazette. This will include Villa Market’s significant range of imported items not available anywhere else on the island.
The new market is expected to have little to no impact on the Chalong branch. However, Mr Lanter expects to see some migration of clients from the Cherng Talay branch, which will be monitored through Villa Market’s Vplus reward card information.
Mr Lanter and Villa Market’s business development manager, Stefan Cariola, will be using a multi-pronged approach to ensure that they attract as many new customers to the new store as possible.
The store will focus on yachties; parents of students at the British International School Phuket, who are forced to do the u-turn and head back toward Phuket Town after picking up their children; office workers and the multitude of people moving into the new developments in Koh Kaew.
Mr Lanter has set a conservative bar for Villa Market customers at the new branch at about 50 per cent, pointing toward both car-less yachties and residents in new developments in the area.
To cater better to the yachties, Mr Lanter is considering a club car delivery service within Boat Lagoon, which might be extended into the Royal Phuket Marina.
“The old super market is closed, the yachties can’t get any beer, they can’t get any drinks, they can’t get any food, and these guys have no cars, so usually they take a taxi to the 7-Eleven or SuperCheap – so for them it’s easier if we could deliver,” Mr Lanter says.
The prices at Villa Market for general goods – those that aren’t imported – are on a par with 7-Eleven, Makro, Tesco Lotus and SuperCheap, Mr Lanter confirms.
There will be outside seating at the new Villa Market for those wanting to eat ready-made meals, such as sushi, chicken, salads, sandwiches and so on. Currently, ready-made meals have been doing very well at both at the Chalong and Cherng Talay branches, so Mr Lanter expects to see similar success at Boat Lagoon. Additionally, BAKE has taken the reins as the bakery and cafe for the venue.
With ample parking space – an estimated 100 car slots – Mr Lanter expects the convenience of the location, as well as the quality of products, to make Villa Market the standard “neighborhood”
grocery store.
Phuket is already home to two of Villa Market’s most successful stores with the highest spending per capita, with Laguna taking the number-one position and Hua Hin keeping the Chalong branch at bay, making it the third highest out of 30 stores in Thailand.
Mr Lanter and Mr Cariola confessed that they would have to remain flexible after the opening and see which shopping trends arise in order to cater best to the varied client base and push the Boat Lagoon branch up the ranks, so it can eventually join Phuket’s other two branches at the top of the highest spending per capita chart.
— Isaac Stone Simonelli
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Thailand
Facebook removes “information-influencing” pages linked to Thai military

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.
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Central Thailand
Airline executive arrested for failure to pay wages of 150 workers

An airline executive has been arrested in the central province of Samut Songkhram, after complaints from150 employees that they had not been paid. Chawengsak Noiprasan, who had a court warrant issued against him in October, was taken to Don Muang police station from a property in the Bang Khan Take sub-district. He is a board member of Siam Air Transport.
The airline began operations in October 2014 with services out of Don Mueang to Hong Kong, using 2 Boeing 737-300s. 2 Boeing 737-800s were added to its fleet in late 2015. It expanded by adding Zhengzhou and Guangzhou in China to its network in early 2015. In late 2015, the airline launched flights to Macau and Singapore. In 2017, the airline ceased all operations.
But according to an article in the Bangkok Post, the carrier operates a number of scheduled and charter flights from Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport. The Post reports that, as Chawengsak signs the company’s legal paperwork, all legal matters concerning the airline fall to him.
The Metropolitan Police Bureau says the executive has admitted to ignoring a 30 day notice issued by the labour inspector and ordering the payment of wages to 150 workers. It’s understood he is also wanted in relation to 7 other cases.
The authorities sought Chawengsak’s arrest following complaints from employees who say they haven’t received their wages for 2 months. It’s understood the airline had previously deferred salary payments for over 8 months. 150 workers filed an official complaint with Don Mueang police and also approached media outlets, asking them to pressure the airline into paying the money owed.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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Business
Governments & old media versus social media – who will win? | VIDEO

We look at the recent changes made by the Australian and Indian governments to except control over the world’s biggest social media platforms. India has issued strict new rules for Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms just weeks after the Indian government attempted to pressure Twitter to take down social media accounts it deemed, well, anti social. There is now an open battle between the rise of social media platforms and the governments and ‘old’ media that have been able to maintain a certain level of control over the ‘message’ for the last century. Who will win?
The rules require any social media company to create three roles within India… a “compliance officer” who ensures they follow local laws; a “grievance officer” who addresses complaints from Indian social media users; and a “contact person” who can actually be contacted by lawyers and other aggrieved Indian parties… 24/7.
The democratisation of the news model, with social media as its catalyst, will continue to baffle traditional media and governments who used to enjoy a level of control over what stories get told. The battles of Google and Facebook, with the governments of India and Australia will be followed in plenty of other countries as well.
At the root of all discussions will be the difference between what governments THINK social media is all about and the reality about how quickly the media landscape has changed. You’ll get to read about it first, on a social media platform… probably on the screen you’re watching this news story right now.
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