The Thai government is asking Facebook to alter their rules about protecting user privacy so that they fall in line with domestic lese majeste laws.
However, when Deputy Prime Minister Prajin Juntong met with Facebook representatives yesterday, they simply outlined their guidelines as they stand, essentially saying that they won’t change to comply with local laws.
Instead of accepting this answer, Prajin will try to appeal directly to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
At Government House yesterday, it was announced that Thai government wants the most commonly used websites in the country to help them protect against content that violates domestic laws.
When this issue was brought up earlier, Facebook said: “We have never provided account information or content of any Facebook user to the government of Thailand, nor do we proactively monitor people’s content or conversations for potential violations of local law.”
“We apply a strict legal process to any government request for data or content restrictions, and we list the requests we are getting and any content restrictions made in our Government Requests Report.”
“Our policies and process for government requests have not changed, and are consistent for governments around the world. Our meeting with the Thai government was to outline this process.”
Following the meeting, Prajin said that Facebook said it urged users not to use the social network against local laws, and avoid distortion of information and hate speech.
The government has already requested that Google, Line and Facebook to check user’s accounts for posts and messages that are against lese majeste laws, especially now since the passing of the late king.
After the meeting with Line, the messaging app released a statement saying, “We do not monitor or block user content. User content is also encrypted, and cannot be viewed by Line.”
Google told The Nation that it would consider requests on an individual basis when it comes to removing links to sites and other content.
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