Officials at the Thai government’s Anti-Fake News Centre have been instructed to intensify their efforts to prevent and crack down on fake news, which is deemed detrimental to life and property, to alert the public about fake news and to provide the public with facts.

The instruction was issued by Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, who is in charge of security affairs, during his inspection visit to the centre today (Friday).

He attached special importance to fake news related to COVID-19 vaccines and the spread of the disease which, he said, has caused widespread public confusion and, hence, needs to be rapidly suppressed.

According to the Anti-Fake News Centre, which is a joint operation between the Royal Thai Police and the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, officials screened 3,857,190 social media messages between April 7^th and May 11^th and found 788 which they deemed to be fake news, related to health and political issues.

During the 475 days, between January 25^th last year and May 11^th this year, about 73.8 million messages were found to be related to COVID-19, but only 6,791 of them were deemed to contain false information, with only 3,376 worthy of investigation. Of these, 2,242 messages concerned health issues, 1,011 concerned government policies.