Over the past few months, the social media in Thailand has literally turned from a playground for fun and entertaining diversions into a veritable battlefield. Facebook's bragging, attention-seeking statuses and narcissistic selfies have been replaced by quotes, reports, pictures and video clips attacking those on the opposite side of the political divide _ and to convince and confirm the righteousness of one's own camp.
And the situation seems to be getting worse while the spectre of violence looms.
The Suthep-led People's Democratic Reform Committee vows to shutdown Bangkok on Monday, while the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship is organising mass counter-rallies in several provinces on the same day.
Equally as worrying as the confrontation itself is distinguishing fact from propaganda, poison from cure, reliable reports from misinformation and disinformation in the often manipulative online world.
An online forum like Facebook is a space where people can share and exchange ideas with those who think alike, yet it can be quite negative if considered from the "flip side", said Asst Prof Dr Pirongrong Ramasoota from Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Communication Arts.
"Social media is a personalised media," she said. "It gives a group of people a chance to voice their political views and get some reassurance in their own view. But people tend to open up only to the things that they like. This narrows one's political horizon while an issue could be looked at from a much wider perspective."
A good example of this is the volume of information, Facebook statuses, personal accounts, photos and clips disseminated during the violent clash in the Ramkhamhaeng area. As the red-shirts' Facebook pages uploaded photos of a woman trapped in a bus that was being viciously attacked by anti-government protesters, the anti-government pages featured clips of Ramkhamhaeng students crouching in fear while being shot at.
The same goes for the pre-New Year's chaos involving the police and hardcore protesters at the Thai-Japanese Stadium in Din Daeng: the pro-Suthep side posted pictures and reports that blamed the authorities for the violence, while those inclined towards the government side shared photos of a taxi driver who was beaten by the mob.
Pirongrong said that the common ground and common interest are very important in a pluralist democratic system, but now the situation has become too polarised and social media has had a great effect of shrinking such ground.
"In the social media world, people don't tolerate what they have not chosen," Pirongrong observed. "We choose the information we want to receive and it's a dangerous network in the long run."
In terms of perception, although there might be some truth in the information, she said that the echoing of hostilities will have multiple effects, making things far more worse than they really are.
"In the long term, things like hate speech build up hostility until society finally runs out of tolerance."
Perhaps more palpable and manipulative than photos and text are the video clips. In recent years, we have seen clips about incidents released by both sides almost simultaneously. And this is for no other reason than to convince the public that it was "the other side" who did this and that to us.
Talking about the use of visual tools as political weapons, Dome Sukwong, a film historian and director of the Thai Film Archive, said that the current political battle is different from previous ones like the Oct 14, 1973, uprising and the Oct 6, 1976, massacre. Back then, footage was released after the events were over and most of the films came from official sources.
''In the past, producing and releasing films was very difficult,'' explained Dome. ''Nowadays, they are easier to make. The videos are right from the events that are happening and they are used to retaliate and to fight immediately.''
Even worse than video clips which only tell one side of the story is the circulation of footage that has been edited or distorted to political ends. Dome said that this is not a novel trick and there were many examples in the past like the incidents in 1973 and 1976.
''Even though the footage was genuine, the subtitles accompanying it might be misleading, and people tend to believe it because it came from an official source,'' he explained.
The words accompanying an uploaded video clip have a powerful influence on viewers. An outstanding case is the clip from the recent clash in Din Daeng which showed a policeman smashing a car with his truncheon as a seemingly harmless civilian recorded the incident inside. While anti-government Facebook users cited the video as an example of police brutality, the pro-government side used the very same clip but claimed that it was in fact protesters disguised as cops in order to destroy the image of the police.
''In cases that involved mass killings such as the Oct 6 massacre, the government set up exhibitions in other provinces with videos which were made to justify themselves. This is all about presentation and the information they want to present,'' said Dome.
He said that while in the past, the editor of each publication was responsible for what was presented, now everybody owns the information.
''We are swamped by news and information. For some people it's like a drug. To believe something that is false is already bad for your mental health. To go out and fight could result in something even worse,'' said the film historian.
''People who watch some of the clips without following everything thoroughly could be tricked into believing something that is false. We have to seek information from all sides and then we might find out how one side or both are lying. Or they both can be right from their own perspective and use that for their own interest.
''It's like looking at an elephant. You look at its front and you might think it's a snake. You look at its side and you might think it's a round-shaped thing. We have to look at it thoroughly from all sides.''
Although we are mired in a morass in this era of customised media, Kapook.com founder Poramate Minsiri said that the situation can be remedied if social media users adopt a more responsible attitude.
''When processing information, we've got to be more careful even though it may come from respected people in society because they could have got it wrong,'' he said.
''We are in a period when there are a lot of producers, creating videos, pictures and stories, but most people don't have the sense of responsibility to correct the information when they later realise it was incorrect. We have to rectify the wrong information as soon as possible, two or three days is already too late.''
Poramate added that another element that is exacerbating the situation is people adopting another identity in the online world.
''Some people feel that they don't have to reveal their true identity, so they don't have to take responsibility for anything. In the cyberworld, people often have more than one identity and they don't really care about the aftermath of their words and actions.''
He recently created a Facebook group in which people can discuss politics, but what he did was to invite people to meet the others in person before letting them discuss online.
''I'm not saying that this is the right way,'' said Poramate. ''But from this experience I have found that putting the real world before the social media world has produced a completely different result. Participants know who the others are and they have more respect for those who think differently.''
