Angry netizens have called for a ban of food-delivery application foodpanda after the company said it would fire an employee for attending pro-democracy demonstrations on Sunday.
The hashtag #แบนfoodpanda (#boycottfoodpanda) has been trending on Thai twitter for the past 24 hours with more than 1.13 million tweets as of Monday morning.
Many of the posts see netizens vowing to delete their accounts.
The outrage began after a foodpanda social media account said that it would fire a man seen in pictures wearing the company’s logo and taking part in Sunday’s protests.
“Please be aware that foodpanda has a policy against all types of violence and terrorism and is ready to cooperate with authorities in pursuing offenders,” foodpanda said on its social media account.
Amid online backlash, foodpanda later issued an apology regarding the earlier response, saying it is still examining what happened.
“We apologize for disappointing all customers and partner restaurants,” the company said.
One of the foodpanda riders posted on Facebook that he does not agree with a company that views its employees as terrorists.
“If I’m going to lose my job because of the stupidity and selfishness of this company, I’d be content,” said the rider in defiance.
His post has been shared over 39,000 times and received more than 95,000 reactions at the time of writing.
Foodpanda is owned by Germany-based Delivery Hero and operates in multiple incarnations across 10 countries and territories.