BANGKOK – Three months after the end of the UDD seige of Bangkok, the online sector of the anti-red Thai middle class has officially abandoned its Facebook pages created solely for expression of hatred of and insults toward the reds.
According to a new report by Garner Media International’s Asian Trends division, the number of red-hating Facebook sites peaked on May 12, when 3,400 pages were registered with similar pro-government names, loosely translated from Thai as “Love Thailand Hate Thaksin”, “Reds Are Shit And Dumb And Under My Foot Ha Ha”, “Love King Forever And Forever Fuck You Dark Buffaloes”, and “Everything Forever Thaksin’s Fault Mark So Handsome Love King.”
With maximum recorded registration of about 2,000 members on each page, peak traffic of 3,020,000 total page views and 830 discussion posts per page, the anti-red movement was representative of about 78% of all of Thailand’s online activity in May. However, as of August 15, the average page views had dropped to 34, and the number of new posts since July was an astonishing zero.
Membership in the Facebook pages has remained steady, the study noted.
“Everyone is still members of the groups,” said Carol Lin, who co-authored the research. “They’ve just run out of interest now that their malls are open, and seem to have returned to their pre-protest habits of chatting about iPhone updates and posting endless photo streams of themselves looking cute on vacation.”
Lin pointed out that the most active Thai Facebook pages were now related to Academy Fantasia, “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson, and that one where they make your picture look like a dog.
