Twitter has suspended a Thai pro-royalist account linked to the palace that a Reuters analysis found was connected to thousands of others created in recent weeks that spread posts in favour of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and therefore the monarchy.
Reuters press agency found tens of thousands of tweets that an expert said seemed to be from accounts amplifying royalist messaging during a push to counter months of protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and – breaking taboos – the reform of the monarchy.
Internal army training documents reviewed by Reuters showed evidence of a coordinated information campaign designed to spread favourable information and discredit opponents.
The pro-monarchy @jitarsa_school account was suspended after Reuters sought discuss Wednesday from Twitter on the recent royalist campaign on the social media platform, where protesters have long had a robust presence.
Protesters and royalists have cited the importance of social media in propelling the protest movement, which has become the most important challenge in decades to the monarchy also because the government of former leader Prayuth.
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Created in September, the @jitarsa_school account had quite 48,000 followers before its suspension.
“The account in question was suspended for violating our rules on spam and platform manipulation,” a Twitter representative said on Sunday. She said the suspension was in line with the company’s policies and not a results of the Reuters request for comment.
The account’s profile had said that it trained people for the Royal Volunteers programme, which is travel by the Royal Office. A Facebook page for the Royal Volunteers School, which posts pro-monarchy videos and news of the programme, also identifies the Twitter account as its own.
Neither the varsity nor the Royal Volunteers headquarters skilled requests for discuss the suspension. The “Volunteer Spirit 904” programme was established during the present king’s reign, which began in 2016, to create loyalty to the monarchy.
The palace didn’t answer an invitation for comment. it’s a policy of not chatting with media and has not commented since the beginning of protests in July.
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