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BANGKOK: Twitter suspended a Thai pro-royalist account linked to the palace that, according to a Reuters analysis, was linked to thousands of others created in recent weeks that spread posts in favor of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and the monarchy.
The Reuters review found tens of thousands of tweets that one expert said appeared to come from accounts that amplified realistic messages in an attempt to counter a months-long protest movement that went from opposing the government to breaking a long-standing taboo by challenge the monarchy.
Internal army training documents reviewed by Reuters showed evidence of a coordinated information campaign designed to spread favorable information and discredit opponents.
The pro-monarchy account @jitarsa_school was suspended after Reuters sought comment Wednesday (November 25) from Twitter on the recent realistic campaign on the social media platform, where protesters have long had a strong presence.
Protesters and royalists have cited the importance of social media in fueling the protest movement, which has become the biggest challenge in decades for the monarchy and the government of former military leader Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Created in September, the @jitarsa_school account had more than 48,000 followers before its suspension.
“The account in question was suspended for violating our rules on spam and tampering with the platform,” a Twitter representative said on Sunday. He said the suspension was in line with company policies and not as a result of Reuters request for comment.
The account profile said that it trained people for the Royal Volunteers program, which is run by the Royal Office. A Royal Volunteers School Facebook page, which posts pro-monarchy videos and program news, also identifies the Twitter account as its own.
Neither the school nor Royal Volunteers headquarters responded to requests for comment on the suspension. The “Volunteer Spirit 904” program was established during the current king’s reign, which began in 2016, to foster loyalty to the monarchy.
The palace did not respond to a request for comment. He has a policy of not speaking to the media and has made no comment since the start of protests in July that initially targeted the government before breaking taboos calling for restrictions on the king’s powers.
REALISTIC FIGHT
In recent weeks, realistic hashtags have started trending on Twitter, an important platform for government opponents even before the protests began in July.
The Reuters analysis found that more than 80 percent of the accounts that follow @jitarsa_school had also been created since the beginning of September. A sample of 4,600 of the newly created accounts showed that all they did was promote realistic hashtags, an indication of the type of activity that wouldn’t be associated with regular Twitter users.
A sample of 559 retweets of the account’s tweets were virtually all from accounts with bot features, according to research by social media consultancy Drone Emprit for Reuters.
“Government forces have been trying to counter the protesters,” said Saijai Liangpunsakul of the independent group Social Media Monitoring for Peace. “Twitter has removed some accounts, but there are many more.”
Hashtags promoted by the suspended account, usually along with images of the king and other royals, included those that translate as: #StopViolatesTheMonarchy, #ProtectTheMonarchy, #WeLoveTheMotherOfTheLand, #WeLoveTheMonarchy, and #MinionsLoveTheMonarchy.
Realist group leader Warong Dechgitvigrom declined to comment on the account suspension, saying he was unaware.
He told Reuters there were more pro-monarchy posts on Twitter because royalists increasingly recognized the need to counter protesters’ posts and had encouraged each other to join the platform.
“The pro-monarchy hashtags are authentic, they are born of true feelings,” he said.
PROTESTERS ACCUSED BY REALISTS
Royalists have accused the protesters of inauthentic activity on Twitter, with coordinated campaigns around hashtags.
But Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak, one of the protest leaders, said that the protesters using the platform were genuine and that he welcomed the suspension of the pro-realist account.
“They are not recruited to use trending hashtags like the military and they do not use taxpayers’ money,” he said.
Although not directly linked to the @jitarsa_school account, a 28-page army document reviewed by Reuters showed an organized intelligence operation to target “opponents” and spread pro-monarchy messages on Twitter.
The document says that 17,562 Twitter accounts run by 9,743 army officers divided into a “white team” and a “gray / black team” who were instructed to tweet with coordinated hashtags, as well as to like, retweet and follow each other. others.
The document suggests measures to make them appear more authentic stories.
On Saturday, the military acknowledged that the document is genuine and said in a Facebook post that it was used in a training session to strengthen the military’s public relations efforts.
In early October, Twitter announced that it had removed 926 accounts linked to the Thai military for violating its platform manipulation policies by amplifying pro-government content and targeting political opposition figures.
The army at the time denied that the accounts belonged to army officers.
