Thailand's Army denies spreading misinformation after Twitter suspends 926 accounts

Thailand's army has denied using Twitter to promote personal agenda and spread misinformation about their political opposition.

Twitter suspended nearly 926 accounts for violating its manipulation policies. Apparently, all these accounts were linked to the Royal Thai Army (RTA)

These accounts were reportedly linked to the Thai Army and were targeting their political oppositions.

"These accounts were engaging in amplifying pro-RTA and pro-government content, as well as engaging in behaviour targeting prominent political opposition figures," it said in a statement.

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Thailand's army has, however, declined all these allegations. "The issue of information operations is a misunderstanding. We don`t do this. It`s not one of our objectives for using Twitter," said Deputy Army Spokeswoman Sirichan Ngathong.

She also said that all these suspended accounts were anonymous and did not belong to the army as the RTA only has one official account.

As per the data provided from Twitter, nearly two-thirds of these accounts had no followers and had very less activity

A study by Stanford Internet Observatory, a research group at Stanford University, said more than half of the accounts never tweeted and most of the tweets had no engagement. "This was a coordinated but low-impact operation," it said in an analysis.

The controversy has been a direct result for Thailand Army's rule in the country from 2014 till 2019 when junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha stayed on as prime minister, rejecting the complaints of critics that the ballot was a facade to keep the military's hands on power.

Twitter also took down accounts it said were linked to the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Russia.