Golden Triangle Digest: Facebook Banned Me Edition, January 17th, 2021
It started with my comment "ok doggy" and ended in a ban. How bad is censorship becoming on Facebook and what's to come?
Dear expats and readers,
This weekend I’d planned to put out a little investigative piece on a certain individual who’s just landed in Thailand a couple weeks back.
But I had to put it on hold.
Why? Well, on Friday evening, my personal Facebook account, which I’ve had for 11+ years, was nuked.
Poof, kaboom, blasted into smithereens, the data brushed into some dusty corners of a Facebook server farm.
All for the best, I say. To be honest, Facebook was always a time-waster. But I met a lot of great people there over the years. And I was able to kick start the True Crime Thailand project largely with audiences from Facebook.
Now mind you, this isn’t just a Facebook jail sentence — I’ve had plenty of those, and I’ll get to that in a moment — what Facebook did here is completely delete all of my user data, including personal messages, contacts, and my personal posts from the platform.
What did I do to violate their terms of service?
It’s a good question, but it boils down to a lot of people reporting posts of mine that they found difficult to reckon with. Ones that exposed crime in Thailand, especially ones that are often ignored by the major English language press.
I also didn’t use my full name on Facebook. I only used my partial name, that is to say, my real first name and 4 out of 6 of the letters in my last name. Facebook wants me to confirm my identity with a passport photo in order to just get access to my data — note: my account will still be deleted — and I’m not willing to make that compromise.
I will still be able to push out content through my True Crime Thailand page and group on Facebook. But I won’t be personally involved in the operation there.
To give you a little perspective on how bad censorship is getting on Facebook.
A couple weeks back, I shared an article I found on Twitter from the Mekong Dam Monitor (mentioned in previous newsletters, unfortunately I can’t access the post right now to share). I added my commentary, which highlighted the actions that China were taking to keep water from flowing into the Mekong River, which negatively impacted villagers in Chiang Rai, Thailand.
There was one individual who commented on my post in another Thailand news group. This gentleman used his pet dog’s face as his profile photo, which I found cute and funny, so I simply replied with a comment saying “ok doggy”.
Facebook immediately gave me a 3 day ban for that comment, “ok doggy.”
It wasn’t reported. It was literally me submitting the comment, then BAM!, 3 day ban.
I repealed the ban, and then they upped the 3 day ban to a 7 day ban.
After the 7 days, I was able to comment around Facebook with my personal account. But I was unable to make posts, either on my personal page or through the True Crime Thailand page while logged in with that account.
I dealt with this hassle for about a week, finding alternative ways to get content out onto my group and page. If there have been some days where you noticed I haven’t posted much, this is why.
Finally, two days ago, while I was browsing my own group on the Facebook app, a message popped up saying my account was deleted for violating terms of service.
Like I said, I will be able to get content onto my True Crime Thailand page and group on Facebook. But I don’t know for how long. Going forward, my priority is to develop my content natively on my website and this newsletter.
If you aren’t subscribed already, now is the best time to do so.
I can’t guarantee that my content will be around forever on the Facebook platform.
Enough about me already…
Going into this weekend, I didn’t intend to make this newsletter about my social media plight. In fact, don’t get me the wrong way, I’m kinda happy that I was banned from Facebook. I already feel my mood lifted and my spirits brighter. I’ll have more time to produce more interesting content for the audiences that want to read me the most.
And that’s what matters to me.
The best stories this past week
Here’s a few links to stories that hit a nerve with my audience this past week:
Truly a tragic story and there’s not much I even want to say on it other than I hope the girl gets justice. There are some updates on the case I will be publishing, likely tomorrow. This story was read by over 15,000 people as of publication of this newsletter — and it’s exactly why the story was shared. The mother tried going to the police to report the grandfather’s actions, but they did nothing. So she went to the media instead.
Scammers are the pond scum of humanity. Somehow this guy was arrested last year and got away. Now he’s back in police custody for bilking over a billion baht from over 10,000 victims. The question is, will he face justice this time?
Koh Samui Police Supervisor Confessed to Rape of Burmese Woman in Custody
An interesting note about this story is that it was picked up from my page and shared around Burmese groups and pages. They seemed to appreciate that the story was getting coverage and attention. Kudos to them for sharing.
High spirits despite it all
I’ll have True Crime Thailand t-shirts and mugs ready soon. If you want one, let me know, I’ll sell it to you at cost — no markup.
You can also look forward to my take and research on a farang murder case from a few years back in Bangkok. It’s the perfect follow up to the Iron Chest Killers article from last week.
Until then, I’m at your service as always.
True Crime Thailand