It seemed like only hours after the official announcement of an election date that the three biggest foreign influencers were rushing in to announce how they intend to help. While each has a slightly different plan, Facebook, Google and Line management quickly lined up to get in on the Thai political action. The first reaction from the Election Commission was to welcome them to the fray. The EC should think again.
The foreign firms, in brief, claim they can help during the election campaign by detecting "fake news" on their networks. They told reporters for this newspaper last week they can cooperate with Thai media. Each claims to have features to address the issue. It's even possible they are sincere and intend to be useful and helpful. But that is questionable.
Facebook is the biggest influencer of the three firms in Thailand. It also is the most prominent company involved in the issue of fake news. Up to now, Facebook also has the world's worst record in detecting and dealing with it.
Its existing record is abysmal. Many Americans believe Facebook's failure to detect fake users and fake news, taken together, was a significant reason for the election of President Donald Trump. Even more clear is the fact that Facebook allowed years of hate-filled, Burmese-language accounts that led to violence including deaths, particularly against the Rohingya Muslims.
Google in Thailand is now loudly advertising its intention to "cooperate with Thai media agencies to track fake news". Google Thailand's communications manager said after the announcement of the March 24 election that its News Lab team can create a list of trusted information sources. It will then apply this to the Google search engine, even to the point of placing "fact check tags" on news stories.
Japan-based Line, by far the country's most popular messaging app, has a unique aim for the election. Line Thailand's business director Kanop Supamanop said the company intends to try to keep the election propaganda somewhat civilised and cool. For example, it will not allow stickers or emojis that unfairly provide an advantage. It will allow parties and individual politicians to create personal stickers under the main rule that they do not attack any other person, group or party.
Even Microsoft Thailand wants a hand in the election campaign. That company claims that Microsoft's artificial intelligence is now smart enough to train Thai news outlets how to detect fake news. It is not reassuring to know that the newest versions of Microsoft web browsers will have this NewsGuard censoring app built in, and it cannot be turned off.
All these foreign companies have the freedom to do what they say. Every Thai voter, however, should be aware that whatever Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Line do will influence and affect the outcome. For this reason, the Election Commission and the entire military regime must stay clear of their operations. Thai media and Thai influencers may be imperfect, but their sheer numbers and diversity in political support assure that fake news will be exposed -- and probably more efficiently than outsiders.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this editorial contained a claim that half of Facebook accounts are fake. This claim is strongly and credibly disputed and denied by Facebook and has been removed from our article.