Thai Press is under invasion or not?

People are more connected in the world of digital disruption, with many various ways to convey and receive information. The digital era has a significant impact on the media and press industries. It shifts from one-way to two-way communication, in which the audience can also be a news producer.

Under these circumstances, ordinary citizens and people who are working in media organizations should have more opportunities to acquire and present information from a variety of sources. However, things do not always go as planned in specific countries, including Thailand, where I lived.

According to research from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on the World Press Freedom Index, Thailand’s freedom of the press is ranked 137th out of 180 countries in the world in 2021. This could be attributed to a variety of factors, including how the Thai government acts and uses law enforcement to treat the media.

The government uses laws 112 and 116 as political weapons against not only people with different political views but also the press and journalists who have a duty to be the country’s watchdog, making the press afraid to present news in a natural way, leading to self-censorship in many news organizations.

Law section 112 is about committing lese majesty by publishing any information that makes the royal family look bad, whether the information is true or not because in Thailand, speaking negatively about the royal family is considered a Taboo. For criminal law section 116, whoever presents information that, in the perception of the government, has the potential to agitate people will be considered a threat to state security and stability and will be arrested.

As shown by Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) data, in the year 2022, the number of people who have been sued by law number 112 and 116 are more than 200 people, including youths. This situation could be characterized as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), in which people see a sample of punishment in order to keep their mouths shut and their eyes closed.

Nevertheless, it works; it creates the ‘Chilling Effect,’ which can be seen in Thailand’s mainstream media, which tends to avoid reporting information or news that contradicts the government’s side.

Based on real-life experience, I conducted one journalist video project at one of Thailand’s major media agencies about any issue that the team believes is a problem in Thailand. The commentators say it’s interesting, but my content about the government is too strong, and publishing it could cause problems for the organization, even if everything in the video is true.

Furthermore, the Thai government is currently considering using a Single gateway system to track and monitor all information that enters and exits the country for the sake of state security and to prevent people from violating the rights of others such as cyberbullying. The single gateway system is widely used in communist countries such as China and Cambodia to control all of the country’s media.

Therefore, it leaves me questioning if it is the best way to tackle fake news and ensure the stability of the state by restricting people’s freedom of expression and freedom of the press, which is one of the essential aspects of investigating how transparent government is because, in my opinion, freedom does not equal an infringement on the facts presented under the proper ways of data management, evaluation, and categorization from the federal government based on basic human rights.