Pro-democracy protest group Free Youth suffered from a coordinated online attack campaign aimed at its social media presence, the group told Thai Enquirer on Friday.
The Free Youth Twitter account and accounts belonging to its leaders Tatthep “Ford” Ruangprapaikitseri and Panumas “James” Singprom were suspended by Twitter, James confirmed to Thai Enquirer.
Cybersecurity experts told Thai Enquirer this could be triggered automatically by a high number of ‘reports’ from the Twitter community which would cause the accounts to be temporarily suspended and for Twitter to review the content of said account.
Twitter has not returned requests for comment.
Free Youth leaders also told Thai Enquirer by phone that their Facebook account was targeted by hackers looking to break into the system in the last 24 hours.
Student-led pro-democracy protests have gripped the country for the past four months with demonstrators calling on the Prayut Chan-ocha government and the Palang Pracharath Party to resign, for the government to re-draft the military-backed charter, and for the government to stop harassing dissidents.
At times, the protests have touched upon reforming the royal institution which has caused much discussion within Thai Society. Unknown actors have, in response, created BOT accounts in the thousands to post pro-royal messages on social media to counter the student-movement.
“Is it possible that these accounts could be turned to spam Twitter’s report functions? Absolutely,” the cybersecurity expert told Thai Enquirer on condition of anonymity.