Social media the new Mega MAKE IT RIGHT influence hits Thailand’s wallet

The power to quickly fix wrongs in today’s world is simply called social media. Be it Twitter, Facebook or whatever, the ability to quickly fix a wrong by having something go viral is now in the hands of victims otherwise known as the people.

We have seen this relatively new phenomenon quickly make things that are wrong right in just about every place around the world. Be it a sudden change in some company policy that causes a huge negative response, or just some jerk running around unchecked hurting people. We have seen mighty and powerful executives yield to the people in a matter of hours, because if they do not act quickly, there will be a lot of explaining to shareholders why the bottom line has suddenly taken a huge hit followed by the need to look for a new job.

Now Thailand has discovered that their infamous double standard between Thais and everyone else is about to come and bite them in the wallet.

The most common double standard that even Thais know and boast about is they always win in court. It does not matter if the evidence is overwhelming or not. The judge may simply disqualify the evidence and suddenly game over Thai wins again. The only time this general rule does not apply is if the foreigner holds a diplomatic passport and is direct kin of an Ambassador from another country.

So as that and other such behaviors are common knowledge, when someone gets burned, as long as nobody knows, nobody cares. Social media quickly ends that and changes Me to Us in short order. So when Me becomes Us and all of Us decide to spend our vacation at some other place and the local tourist economy goes into a nose dive, the Thais are forced to listen and make things right.

In the YouTube below is just such an example. The resulting fallout from this single YouTube has caused numerous cancellations and suddenly placed this particular issue in the mainstream media. The premiss of the video is someone got raped and the Thai man accused is walking about freely thus putting other tourists in danger from this man. The mainstream media picked up on this not because of the rape, but because of the negative financial impact it was having.

Now all things considered the Thais are trying to defend their position by putting up a counter YouTube to rebuff the particulars of this case, but because the general theme is common, it will quickly fall on deaf ears and people will still go someplace else to enjoy their vacation. The only cure is to revoke this guys bail and keep him in jail until his trial is done, and forever say goodby to the double standard.

The fact that Thailand is considering blocking the YouTube video “Evil man from Krabi” in Thailand is hilarious, impotent, and amusing, as well as being very Thai. Unfortunately that will have little effect if any as vacation destination decisions are made most before they arrive in Thailand. The desire to ignore reality and pretend it is not there is a classic Thai response when they are forced to look at reality that puts them in a less than favorable light.

So what this has done is put Thailand along with the rest of the world on notice that certain accepted norms of behavior must be followed or risk the wrath of a viral YouTube, Twitter tweet, Facebook posting, or whatever that will hit you dead center wallet.


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