of the 1st Regional Army Area, the Commander of the 1st Division (Royal Guard), the Head
of Military Intelligence, the Director of the Army Cyber Center, and the commander
responsible for suppressing technology-related crimes from the Royal Thai Police.
At the staff level, the document specifies that the group is composed of personnel
from the Royal Guard Headquarters, the Royal Guard Special Operations Unit 904,
the Royal Thai Army, and the Royal Thai Police.
The opposition People’s Party’s parliamentary debate indicates that, even though
the government has transitioned to a civilian administration under Paetongtarn
Shinawatra of the Pheu Thai Party, the IO operations have continued and become even
more centralized. According to the documents presented in March 2025, Paetongtarn
herself was also a target of the IO operations, with accounts allegedly involved in the
campaign criticizing her handling of the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia,
her qualifications to be prime minister, and even her fashion sense. Her father, former prime
minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was also identified as a target in the leaked document due
to a lèse-majesté case against him arising from a 2015 media interview.
This suggests that Paetongtarn’s civilian government might not have full authority over
the military. The struggle between the civilian government and the military is also reflected
in the leaked phone call between Paetongtarn and Hun Sen, which led to her removal
from office.
Based on information in the leaked documents, iLaw, a human rights NGO in Thailand,
further investigated posts targeted by IO and found evidence of coordinated activity432.
The accounts involved appeared to use the same images and text in posts across
different targeted pages433. These posts were often published at around the same time and
date, and the accounts also shared many of the same “friends” on their social media
profiles434.
Chayaphon’s parliamentary debate was not the first time the operations had been raised in
parliament; it was first exposed in 2020. However, the military has never acknowledged
the operations, despite reports from social media companies, including Meta (then
Facebook)435 and X (then Twitter), that they removed accounts believed to be associated
with the Royal Thai Army in 2021 due to coordinated inauthentic behavior436.
“IO – Part One: Four Convincing Reasons the Accounts in the ’68 Debate Documents Are Indeed
Military IO” iLaw, 24 Aug. 2025, www.ilaw.or.th/articles/54102.
433.
Ibid.
434.
Ibid.
435.
“February 2021 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report.” Facebook, Feb. 2021, about.fb.com/wp-content/
uploads/2021/03/February-2021-CIB-Report.pdf.
436.
Tostevin, Matthew, and Patpicha Tanakasempipat. “Exclusive: Twitter Suspends Thai Royalist Account
Linked to Influence Campaign.” Reuters, 30 Nov. 2020, www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/twittersuspends-thai-royalist-account-linked-influence-campaign-2020-11-30.
432.
88