Facebook defends false 'bomb in Bangkok' alert (Updated)

28 ธันวาคม 2559

There was no explosion in Bangkok, but Facebook now says the man throwing giant firecrackers near Government House was scary enough to activate its Safety Check.

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Afternoon update

Facebook is defending its Safety Check alert even though there was no actual explosion. Do you find the explanation convincing?

Facebook defends it safety check

Online reporters

Facebook Thailand has defended the trigger of a false bombing alarm in Bangkok on its network late on Tuesday, saying the incident did happen and referring to a Government House bomb threat incident reported by local media early in the morning.

Its Safety Check feature, intended for any user to report a crisis, such as an earthquake, in his area and inform his circles that he is safe, was activated for Bangkok late on Tuesday and spread quickly throughout Thailand-based Facebook communities. It turned out to be a hoax and caused a misunderstanding and brief panic.

Facebook said in a statement on Wednesday that a "third-party entity" enabled its Safety Check feature in the area, an explanation consistent with the intended purpose of the feature.

However, the social media network cited four local English-language news reports published on Tuesday morning, including that of the Bangkok Post, to support its claim that the incident "has now been confirmed by local press".

The reports were about a man who climbed on a roof near the Government House and tossed some giant firecrackers to make his point about his land ownership problem. None of the media it cited reported an “explosion”.

Fake bomb news fools thousands

Online reporters

"News" of a bomb explosion in Bangkok spread like wildfire on Facebook and Line Tuesday evening, but the story was false.

Users by the thousands clicked on the fake Facebook page, "The Explosion in Bangkok, Thailand" that they were safe, after the site reported there was an explosion somewhere in the city.

It provided no details of the alleged blast, but hoodwinked a large number of social media users into messaging friends and family they had survived, unhurt.

The news spread worldwide. The Bangkok Post received worried inquiries from as close as Malaysia and as far away as the US state of Colorado, where relatives of Thais frantically searched for news of the "Bangkok bomb".

Clueless "news" sites around the world were instantly taken in and re-reported the fake news, without checking.

Technology website TheVerge.com blamed Facebook.

"Facebook got fooled by its own algorithm," it reported. "The social network falsely activated its Safety Check feature after a flood of fake news suggested that there was an explosion in Bangkok, Thailand.

"Users in the country saw an alert to mark themselves safe, but saw little details about when or where in Bangkok the "explosion" occurred.

"Safety Check came on at around 9pm local time and was deactivated about an hour later."

The fake news of a Tuesday explosion proved to have been triggered by faulty Facebook algorithms.

When Facebook's news service "saw" an old report of the August, 2015, Erawan Shrine bomb attack, its algorithms kicked in automatically, but re-reported the news happened Tuesday evening.

The initial report was then tracked back early Wednesday to a "news" site called Bangkok Informer, and a story it ran Tuesday on the Erawan attack.

That site was pulled off the internet late Tuesday, claiming it had a maintenance problem.

But because the internet never forgets, the trail of the fake news is still clear despite the attempt by Bangkok Informer to memory-hole its role.

It now is clear that the fake bomb story began when BangkokInformer.com, shortly after 8pm on Tuesday, picked up and ran this (below) old video-report by the BBC on the Erawan Shrine bombing of Aug 17, 2015.

After that, algorithms clicked in, especially on Facebook, and the fake news took off worldwide.