Mainstream media's failure to adequately provide the information that flood victims wanted to know paved the way for strong emergence of reporting in social media sphere during the crisis, a seminar was told.
"Roo Su Flood" (Know, Fight Flood), which contained popular flood information in animated form posted on Youtube, and the "Chao Charan Ruam Jai Choy Namtoum" (Charan People Fighting Flood) Facebook pages were among the most viewed pages during the floods.
Both social media groups were a big hit due to their new approach to managing information, said Yingcheep Atchanont, iLaw (Internet for People's Laws Project) officer.
The Charan People page was created by two young flood victims _ Nanthinee Niphandwongkorn, a newly-graduated law student from Kasetsart University, and Samaporn Rattanawaraha, a science student from King Mongkut University.
Ms Samaporn said that since mainstream media was unable to provide adequate information round-ups about the Thon Buri area, she decided to initiate the information-sharing page on Facebook.
Ms Nanthinee explained the website was not just useful for young online users, but the information was also shared with their parents during the floods.
Thawatchai Saengthammachai, a social-minded advertising entrepreneur who created the Roo Su Flood videos said he and his friends decided to provide select information in graphic form to make it easy to disseminate and to serve as an alternative to mainstream media which seemed to be irrelevant and mistrusted due to their business, if not political, bent.
Mr Thawatchai said during the short life of the Roo Su Flood project, some corporations, including real estate, dog food, mobile phone, insurance, and automobile firms, wanted to buy advertising.
But in the end, the group decided to keep their web page strictly advertising free.
Both web masters said they would return to their normal lives now the floods have receded, but if another emergency requires rapid response in the future, they would quickly return to the fore.
The best way to deal with the influx of information was to educate netizens rather than regulate social media.
Chutchai Tawandharong, chief executive officer of Spring News, a 24-hour satellite TV station, said social media can be nicely melded into traditional media reporting, but the core standards of a strong newsroom need to stay put.
Pichate Yingkiattikun, a member of Thai Netizen Network, an alliance of computer users monitoring the government's internet policy, said flood-related social media became a stage for colour-coded conflicts and some of the netizens were not exercising accountability by verifying information before posting it.
Meanwhile, Arthit Suriyawongkul, Thai Netizen Network coordinator, said a survey of 1,700 internet users conducted from September to October found web surfers are more open-minded than non-internet users on issues such as censoring or blocking websites.
The survey conducted by the My Computer Law project, a campaigner for justice and fair regulations of computer users, showed that 63% of respondents did not agree with blocking porn websites but it would be okay to have some censoring to keep children from viewing the material,
Mr Arthit said. A majority of respondents said the government should be most strident in censoring defamation content, followed by threats to national security and social values.
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