The Use of Facebook for Political Purposes in Thai Politics: An Analysis of the Yingluck Government, 2011-2013

Political turmoil and violence has been with Thailand for a decade. People are divided into political camps since 2005 and they become uncertain to discuss about politics in daily life and turn to use online social media. In light of these problems, this paper analyses how Thai use Facebook for political purposes and how it plays role in spreading hatred in Thai politics during Yingluck Shinawatra’s Administration. This is to understand and analyse how Thai use Facebook for political purposes; how hatred is provoked among online users though they do not know each other before, and what will be the result of this hatred provocation. The main methodology is qualitative study using the methods of personal interviews with 45 Facebook users and the analysis of contents posted on timeline of political selected Facebook pages., the case study on the Thai PM’s speech in Mongolia is brought in to exemplify how Thai use Facebook for expressing political views and how hatred is provoked on Facebook. The analysis reveals that there are at least two main reasons that divided Thai into political camps: the political conflicts in Thailand that divided people into political camps since 2005 and the taboo in discussing some political is-sues in real life. This political division becomes more divided in Yingluck’s government due to its policies. Therefore, people turn to use online communi-ties to express political views. Facebook gains popularity due to its potential in facilitating political communication and participation; the success of using Fa-cebook among Thai during the 2011 flood; the less risk in discussing politics that is sensitive and tabooed in reality; the availability of internet and low cost of multimedia mobile phones; simplicity of Facebook in using; the collection of like-minded members in the political Facebook pages. The main objectives of political Facebook pages mainly are for publicizing political views; attacking political opponents; sanctioning in online community; threatening to use vio-lence; to mobilize people; and to reproduce political discourses. However, the results from the case study found that in expressing political views, Thai use rude and curse words which results further to the existence of hatred against the political opponents on political Facebook pages. The contents found from the case are full with the uses of hate speech which has potential in leading to violence in reality such as the exclusion, the killing or the genocide of those who are opponents based on nationality, languages, religion or political views.