Thailand and Fake News about COVID-19

Cite this article as: Arunrangsiwed, P. (2020). Thailand and Fake News about COVID-19. Retrieved from https://sw-eden.net/2020/04/02/fake-news-covid-19/

I am sure that I am not the only one who hate fake news. I really hate fake news about COVID-19 and government. Many times that the government did not announce anything, but some online users created fake contents to confuse other users. This is what happened in Thailand. Many adolescents got addicted to social network, hate government (in 2020), and love that FFP, just because they consume too much fake news. This fake news is something for arousing chaos around the city and also within many organizations.

I worked as a university lecturer. Many students received too much information from social network. I do not want to blame them, because when people feel uncertainty, they would automatically look for more information, and the social network is the available source for these students. The fake news cause a lot of confuse among my students. Someone got angry or aggressive at me, just because I did not believe the fake news they believe. Sometimes, the university and the government did not announce anything, but some online create a weird wrong content that scare all of them. For example, students in my university who got COVID-19 is in other faculty, but some students changed the name of faculty to make my students fear.

I, as their teacher, at least, I should make my students feel secure. However, I cannot. I received the news directly from my university and they asked me and other teachers to tell students. That should be a proper way. Many times, the news are different from the online fake news. Many times that public relation practitioners of the university also received the online fake news, too. The chaos is not only caused by COVID-19 itself, but it has been caused by the communication failure. Sometimes, I got depressed, that I cannot be the one I should have been. I should be the teacher, who provided my students with a certain stage, or who wash away their anxiety.

You know what? What my students really look at me is very different. They think that I was a liar and I did not do what I am expected to do. They thought that all information they got from social network is true, and if I said something different from those contents, they would not trust me. I will not blame my students, but I will blame the fake news creators, or those who spread the fake information which panic all people around Thailand.