The Cyber Scouts is a Thai state-sponsored youth-based online vigilante network that German academic Wolfram Schaffar has characterised as 'reminiscent of fascist vigilante groups'. It was founded in 2010 and currently operates under the

Ministry of Digital Economy and Society The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (Abbreviation, Abrv: MDES; , ), formerly known as the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT), , is a List of government ministries of Thailand, cabinet ministry of Thailand. MICT wa ...

. The program trains high school and university students nationally in ultra-royalist ideology via workshops. Its two main objectives are indoctrinating Thai youth with ultra-royalist values and creating a youth-based nationwide network dedicated to detecting and reporting

lèse-majesté ''Lèse-majesté'' or ''lese-majesty'' ( , ) is an offence or defamation against the dignity of a ruling head of state (traditionally a monarch but now more often a president) or of the state itself. The English name for this crime is a mod ...

violations through online surveillance.

History

The Cyber Scouts have been described as "reminiscent of the anticommunist, right-wing paramilitary

Village Scouts Village Scouts (, ) is the common name of a right-wing, ultranationalist social movement and paramilitary militia of volunteers from rural Thailand. It is a countrywide organization that the King and Queen of Thailand have sponsored since 1972 in ...

of the 1970s" in that both programs are state-backed. The program was launched in December 2010 by the conservative

Abhisit Vejjajiva Abhisit Vejjajiva (; , , ; born 3 August 1964) is a Thai politician who was the 27th prime minister of Thailand from 2008 to 2011. He was the leader of the Democrat Party from 2005 until he resigned following the party's weak performance in t ...

administration, under the Thai Ministry of Justice and the Ministry for Information and Communication Technology. It was shut down in 2011 during the

Yingluck Shinawatra Yingluck Shinawatra (, , ; born 21 June 1967) is a Thai businesswoman, politician and a member of the Pheu Thai Party who was the 28th prime minister of Thailand from 2011 to 2014. Yingluck was Thailand's first female prime minister and its yo ...

administration, but it was reactivated by the military regime following the 2014 coup. As of 2016, 112 schools were involved, with over 120,000 members.

Objectives

According to a 2010 Ministry of Justice training document, the Cyber Scouts originally had five objectives: 1. To create a Cyber Scout volunteer network... that observes... nlinebehavior that is deemed a threat to national security and to defend and protect the royal institution. 2. To collect the work of the Cyber Scout volunteers. 3. To set up a network of Cyber Scout volunteers to contact. 4. To promote the moral and ethics with the help of the volunteers, to ensure the correct behavior, build reconciliation and awareness towards the use of information with regard to morality and safety of individuals in society. 5. To promote and support to various sectors of society to careful and responsible usage of information technology. In the 2014 reboot, the objectives were "to jointly observe threats and monitor informations that are dangerous to the onarchyinstitution ndnational security, (...) to handle online information appropriately, as well as to incite to youth ith that knowledgeso that they will use technology the right way".

Tactics

Participants are encouraged to register on a website and are trained in one-day workshops. They receive ideological instructions on the history and importance of the

Thai monarchy The monarchy of Thailand is the constitutional monarchy, constitutional form of government of Thailand (formerly ''Siam''). The king of Thailand (, historically, ''king of Siam''; ) is the head of state and head of the ruling Chakri dynasty. ...

and are trained in how to use

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

; they are incentivized through a points-based system. The Cyber Scouts' tactics includes befriending potential suspects on

and initiating conversations on sensitive topics. They then report alleged violations of lèse-majesté.{{Cite web, title=Thai 'cyber scouts' patrol web for royal insults, url=https://phys.org/news/2011-05-thai-cyber-scouts-patrol-web.html, access-date=2020-08-29, website=phys.org, language=en

History

Objectives

Tactics

See also

References

Further reading