Enjoying decades of free reign on the world wide web, social media networks are increasingly finding themselves on the opposite side of the law when it comes to the contents posted on their sites. Playing ignorant and hiding behind ‘freedom of speech’ statements is no longer acceptable, platforms like Facebook is being used by radical leftist to pursue harmful agenda and no one seems to be accountable.
Calling for stricter control over these giants, recently the Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society issued official notifications to social media networks, asking them to block access to websites which are deemed to be breaching Thai law, said Minister of Digital Economy and Society Buddhipongse Punnakanta.
The minister said he had sought court orders to block an additional 1,024 web links including 661 Facebook links, 289 YouTube links and 69 Twitter links.
“These powerful social media giants do understand Thai law, so I hope they will comply with the Thai court’s order to shut down links that breach the Thai law,” said Buddhipongse.
“There are just some issues of Thailand that should not be discussed or presented in a negative manner in open websites or social media,” he added.
Facebook which in the past would defend for users to post content that does not violate its own policy is now changing the tune and accommodates government requests more willingly. Buddhipongse said he had just received a feedback from Facebook Singapore that it will block URLs that are deemed detrimental to Thailand’s image.
The Thai court had on Aug. 10, given Facebook 15 days to remove information which violates the Computer Crime Act or face legal action.
Facebook, Twitter and Google are facing similar situation in other parts of the world, the European Union has already clamped down on the extent autonomy these platforms enjoy, US has take legal action on Facebook, Indonesia is calling for more restriction and Australia wants share of Googles profits.
Its about time the powerful networks are wound in and scrutinised, they can claim not responsible for the what people post on their platforms but responsible for all the profits they earn.
