The BBC is turning to Facebook to counter Thailand’s military dictatorship

The BBC is turning to Facebook to overcome the removal of its news service in Thailand, which was taken off-air alongside other international broadcasters after the country’s military staged a coup in May. The organization is launching a “pop up” news operation that will dish up Thai, regional and international news in both English and Thai across the social network. The pilot will run for three months, it’s not clear if it will be replicated elsewhere in the world. The initiative has won praise from Britain’s Minister for Southeast Asia, and is certainly an interesting way to avoid the Thai junta’s clampdown on media. The army ordered a brief block of Facebook, but it remains to be seen if it would consider restricting access to this BBC project.

The BBC’s World Service will launch a new Thai-language ‘pop-up’ service on Thursday to provide an alternative source of information to the heavily-censored media controlled by the military dictatorship. The news operation will launch in the early hours British Summer Time and will be delivered by social media and digital platforms in an effort to circumvent regime controls. After years of shrinking foreign language and coming under criticism from former ambassadors and others, the BBC Thai initiative is a three-month experiment in how to respond to the imposition of dictatorship in a formerly democratic state. Thailand’s army seized power in May 2014 only seven years after restoring civilian rule in what was the military’s 19th actual or attempted coup in the kingdom since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932. During the takeover international channels, including BBC World News TV, were taken off air temporarily and the media have been warned not to breach military guidelines. “One of the fundamental principles of the World Service is to bring impartial and accurate news and to countries when they lack it. We think the time is right to trial a new Thai and English digital stream to bring trusted news and information to people inside Thailand,” Liliane Landor, Controller of Language Services for the World Service, said.