Thailand Sues Facebook, Twitter For Not Removing Inappropriate Content

Thailand's Ministry of Digital Economy and Society has taken legal action against Facebook and Twitter over their refusal to remove content deemed by the agency as inappropriate.

The ministry lodged legal complaints against the two companies with cybercrime authorities. In the complaint, the ministry said the companies failed to comply with court-issued orders to remove content.

The prosecutions were issued against the companies' U.S.-based owners - not their subsidiaries in Thailand.

The ministry submitted a similar request to Alphabet's Google in August. Google complied and removed content on its YouTube video streaming platform.

"This is the first time we're using the Computer Crime Act to take action against platforms for not complying with court orders. Unless the companies send their representatives to negotiate, police can bring criminal cases against them," Puttipong Punnakanta, the minister of the country's Digital Economy and Society said late this week.

The digital ministry didn't elaborate on the content in question or what laws were broken. However, it did say most of the content requested to be removed from the platforms ranged from pornography and gambling to content that publicly criticizes the country's monarchy.

In Thailand, it is illegal to insult the monarchy. The country's Computer Crimes Act, which specifically prohibits the spread of fake news or other types of information that affects national security, has been used to prosecute social media users who criticized the royal family.

Ignoring a court-issued order could result in fines of up to $6,000 plus an additional fine for each day the order remains unobserved. Before the filing regulators sent social media companies requests to enhance their filtering process to prevent the spread of false information and unwanted content.