Thais struggling to make sense of the kingdom’s deadly flood crisis are

Thais struggling to make sense of the kingdom’s deadly flood crisis are turning to social media like never before, spurred by confusing official information about the disaster, observers say.

From Facebook photos of overflowing canals to tweets warning of snakes on the loose and YouTube videos of what to pack for an evacuation, the Internet is awash with up-to-the-minute details of Thailand’s worst floods in decades.

Thais are stepping in to fill a need for real-time, practical information that is not always met by the authorities or traditional media, although social media themselves are often rife with misinformation.

The three-month-old disaster, which has claimed more than 440 lives, has been plagued by contradictory statements from local and national officials about areas most at risk and how best to deal with the floodwaters.

Social media expert Jon Russell, Asia editor of tech website The Next Web, agreed.

“The Internet as a whole has been important during the flood with many news sites recording record traffic and blogs telling individual accounts of escaping from rising water,” he said.

But commentators said that, while warnings of dangers lurking in the water or calls to donate blood served a purpose, the incessant flow of unedited, unchecked information risked adding to confusion and further rattling nerves.

And exchanges on Twitter about the floods have at times descended into mud-slinging between users.

Despite the presence of some “unprofessional citizen reporters”, the benefits of social media far outweighed the downsides in the circumstances, said Somkiat.

Twitter has enjoyed a 20 per cent spike in user numbers in Thailand in the past two months, according to McFiva, a digital media agency that holds the advertising rights to the site in Thailand.

The jump from 600,000 users in September to 720,000 in October is directly linked to the floods, said the firm’s managing director Supachai Parchariyanon.

The #thaiflood keyword has notched up more than half a million hits in the past month, dwarfing the second-most popular hashtag #Ch3, a Thai television station, with just over 82,000 hits over the same period, according to Thai Trend, which analyses tweets in the country.

And as run-off water from northern and central parts of the country slowly closes in on Bangkok, threatening the low-lying city of 12 million, the #bkkflood search term has steadily been climbing the rankings.

Meanwhile, Facebook membership has soared to more than 12 million people — 18 per cent of the population — from just over seven million at the start of the year according to Socialbakers, which compiles data about the site.

Internet users have also been flocking to video-sharing website YouTube.

Source AP