Design/HaRDstories
- By Nathaphob Sungkate, Nicha Wachpanich and Ken G Weber
- Photography by Peerapon Boonyakiat
- Published
- 21 min read
Thailand’s economy depends on Myanmar workers. Now, a wave of online disinformation is fueling hostility towards migrants – and the political party accused of supporting them.
Zaw Min* lives and works in Thailand, but the pain for his homeland cuts deep. Glued to news of the brutal crackdown by Myanmar’s military and the civil war that followed, he watched his birthplace disintegrate into a man-made catastrophe in real time.
After months of worsening headlines, Zaw Min decided to act, however small the gesture. With several friends, he took to the streets to collect donations for victims of Myanmar’s fighting.
It was this charitable spirit that landed him in trouble. Thai nationalists confronted him, seized his equipment, and dragged him to a police station on allegations he was soliciting without permission.
“When they were taking me to the police station, my body went numb with fear,” Zaw Min recalled. Despite holding a valid work permit, he feared the worst. “I wondered if I would be deported. I was terrified of being sent back to Myanmar and conscripted into the army.”
His worst fear didn’t materialise, but he still faced a hefty fine for breaching an obscure 1944 panhandling law. Authorities confiscated his donations. The experience discouraged him from further fundraising or campaigning, despite his legal status as a registered, documented worker.
“Migrant workers are facing so much hostility right now, from both the public and law enforcement officials,” Zaw Min told HaRDstories. “The situation gets more tense every day.”
Thailand has long housed a large community of migrant workers and refugees from neighbouring Myanmar. But the country’s civil war sent migration soaring as people fled across the border seeking employment and safety. The United Nations estimate about 4.1 million Myanmar nationals now reside in Thailand, roughly half of them registered migrant workers.
The influx, often reported with breathless sensationalism by mainstream media, has triggered increasing unease amongst Thai citizens. Many have taken to social media to voice fears that Myanmar migrants are “flooding” Thailand, “stealing jobs” from Thais, and overwhelming the country’s underfunded universal healthcare system, already strained by an ageing population.
Yet a closer investigation by HaRDstories into these online discussions reveals them to be riddled with misleading content, hoaxes, and gross generalisations about Myanmar nationals. It also uncovers a proliferation of hate speech directed at migrant workers and what appears to be a coordinated effort to frame political figures as collaborators with migrants seeking to undermine Thailand’s national interests.
Within this closed-loop information environment – fed by half-truths and manufactured outrage – a new breed of influencer-activists has found vast online audiences and taken action in the physical world against what they consider “seditious” migrant workers, sometimes resorting to violence. The phenomenon raises an unsettling question amongst migrant rights groups: Is Thailand becoming an increasingly hostile place for the workforce it has long depended on?
Behind the data: How we tracked the hate
To better understand the flow of online prejudice, HaRDstories collected 129 public Facebook posts in Thai that qualified as hate speech – expression of hatred or use of dehumanising language based on race, religion, or gender – directed at Myanmar migrants from August 2024 to February 2025. These samples do not reflect the entirety of public opinion.
‘The People’s Party of Myanmar’
At 33, Tisana Choonhavan is amongst the youngest MPs of the People’s Party, and one of its newcomers. Despite her relatively short parliamentary tenure – she was elected in May 2023 – she found herself at the centre of the largest political firestorm to engulf her beleaguered party in recent months.
The controversy stems from a speech she delivered to the Lower House in September, calling on the current administration to provide humanitarian assistance to Myanmar nationals fleeing civil war across the border and recognise their basic rights as refugees.
Her call for action ignited such intense backlash that it seemed to catch the party off guard. Conservative commentators denounced Tisana’s plea as misplaced sympathy that risked harming national security, whilst the party’s social media detractors dubbed it “the People’s Party of Myanmar” for seemingly prioritising refugees over Thai compatriots.
Within hours, the hashtag #PeoplesPartyofMyanmar and posts critical of Tisana were trending on social media – a rare instance where the youth-oriented party suffered a PR defeat on what many consider its home turf. Photoshopped images showing Tisana and fellow MPs in Burmese traditional outfits became a favourite joke amongst right-leaning internet users.
“I had about 10,000 followers on my Facebook account, but after the speech about Myanmar refugees, I received about 30,000 messages in my inbox, including some from anonymous profiles,” Tisana said. She described a recurring theme: messages either mocking her as a “Myanmar MP” or suggesting she move to Myanmar.
An analysis by HaRDstories found that the phrase “the People’s Party of Myanmar” first appeared in a now deleted TikTok video posted on 6 September 2024 by a user named ‘Wutkanmuang’ – a prolific account that publishes political commentary to its 500,000 followers.
The one-minute, 45-second video shows Tisana during the party’s campaign for a local election in Phitsanulok province, where she called for measures to legalise undocumented migrant workers’ stay. Although similar plans have been pursued by successive governments in recent years, the account accused Tisana of serving as a mouthpiece for migrant workers. The video was emblazoned with a large caption: “the People’s Party of Myanmar.”
The phrase came to dominate media coverage of the People’s Party in the last months of 2024. Tisana’s 29-minute parliamentary address was reduced to snippets lasting mere minutes or even seconds on TV news shows. The content focused exclusively on her mention of Myanmar migrant workers whilst omitting her calls for similar protection of Thai labourers overseas.
A dangerous import?
For her part, Tissana defended her speech, saying she felt that events in Thailand’s neighbouring countries matter to Thai citizens as much as domestic politics, citing her role as a member of the Lower House foreign affairs committee.
“I raised the Myanmar unrest because it’s a border crisis that directly affects Thai people’s interest,” she said.
The opposition party wasn’t alone in facing allegations of pandering to Myanmar workers at Thailand’s expense. Even Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra drew similar ire from right-wing media influencers for a Cabinet resolution granting citizenship to stateless refugees in Thailand.
Whilst the measure – long championed by ethnic minority rights advocates – would apply largely to refugees who have already spent decades in Thailand, many on social media misrepresented it as a “blanket” grant of citizenship to all migrants.
The controversies follow similar patterns witnessed in the United States and European countries, where conservative and far-right political groups compete in rhetoric blaming national problems on foreign workers and asylum seekers whilst accusing their governments of showing weakness on immigration.
“It’s just a way of finding a villain so they can appease their supporters,” Tissana said of the phenomenon.
Political scientist Sirada Khemanitthathai, who teaches at Chiang Mai University, agreed that tactics of winning votes by fanning hatred against migrant workers, as seen overseas, appear to have been embraced by elements of Thai politics recently.
“This outburst of hatred would only lead to a fresh political division,” Sirada told HaRDstories. Any debate about migrant workers should consider all relevant socio-economic issues rather than becoming a “political football”, she added.
“This is something that concerns the interests of Thai society as a whole,” the lecturer said. “It shouldn’t be seen as an interest for any political group or faction.”
Waging war on wages
TikTok has proved valuable to labour rights campaigner Veera Sangthong thanks to its popularity amongst Myanmar migrants living in Thailand. Almost every evening, Veera goes live on the platform to discuss welfare and rights protections essential to migrant workers, as well as the latest developments from Myanmar.
Part of what makes Veera’s outreach relatable is his own background. Born in Thailand to a ethnic Karen family living along the Thai-Myanmar border, Veera spent his adolescent years in Burma, as the country was then called, before returning to Thailand at 16.
Myanmar’s 2021 coup and subsequent crackdown on civil society led Veera to quit his office job and pursue full-time advocacy. He became a familiar face in the media, often speaking for migrant workers and staging actions alongside the group he founded, called Bright Future.
But in recent months, Veera has become a public enemy for many on social media and a poster child of what rightwing media figures have come to depict as a threat to the very foundation of Thailand’s national security.
It started with a viral TikTok video posted in January claiming to show Veera, labelled as a Myanmar migrant worker community leader, telling media he wanted a 700-baht (21 USD) daily minimum wage for Myanmar labourers – nearly twice the rate for Thais. The video was posted just five days after the government raised the national minimum wage to 400 baht (12 USD), creating the perception that Veera wanted even more.
The clip sparked widespread social media discussions, most critical of Veera’s supposed demand, then amplified by nearly every major media outlet nationwide. Veera felt the impact immediately; after the video gained traction, his livestream was flooded with comments from Thai internet users criticising his activism.
The online fury often spilt into the streets. One case was a rally organised by a conservative group called Thai Mai Thon – “Thais Won’t Tolerate This” – in February.
Over a hundred group members gathered outside the UN office after hearing Veera was headed there to submit a petition urging global sanctions on Myanmar’s military junta on the coup’s fourth anniversary. They used the opportunity to vent fury at Veera, especially his alleged wage demand. Large banners showing Veera’s face were laid on pavements so the crowd could trample them – a Thai way of showing utmost contempt.
“I think migrant workers are overstepping too much these days,” a demonstrator from Ubon Ratchathani told HaRDstories. “If they had lived the way they used to, there wouldn’t be any problem. But now they’re organising a movement to demand a minimum wage of 700 baht. I want them to know this is not their country. This is Thailand.”
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Manipulated content
However, closer examination by HaRDstories found the claim appears to have been manipulated out of context. In his original interview, Veera highlighted the many hidden costs migrant workers have to endure in Thailand, including premiums to work agents, social security payments, and various fees for registering legal status.
To offset those costs, Veera suggested they should be paid more than the standard 350-baht (10.60 USD) minimum wage prescribed by law. None of these rationales made it into the 1-minute viral TikTok video, leaving only the part where he seemed to be making an ultimatum to the Thai government.
“Would you believe me if I tell you that some Myanmar workers only get a little over 100 baht per day? Some people get 200 baht. Only a minority get the full 350 baht,” he told reporters in the interview. “Of course we want more than 350 baht. We want something in the region of 600, 700 baht, or more.”
Another important context missing from the viral video: the interview took place nearly three years ago, at a rally marking International Migrants Day in December 2022, when many activists were campaigning for minimum wage rises for both Thais and migrant workers.
The TikTok user responsible for the notorious clip also made a crucial change to the original video – adding the People’s Party logo to the upper corner of the frame, on top of a Myanmar flag held by a demonstrator. The editing led many viewers to falsely believe the opposition was either endorsing or involved in the rally.
The intention behind the user’s decision to post the manipulated, shortened version of Veera’s interview – mere days before the People’s Party was due to compete in a key local election in February – was anyone’s guess.
A protest that wasn’t
Like a bamboo stalk of misinformation, the controversy around Veera’s supposed 700-baht ultimatum sprouted further offshoots that fanned online anger against migrant workers, such as a Facebook post claiming to show Myanmar labourers staging a protest at a Thai factory to demand wage increases.
“Many companies are now firing Burmese workers after their leaders organised protests and demanded 700-baht pay,” the post added. Similar claims on TikTok and elsewhere gained thousands of reactions.
In fact, the photos were taken from a demonstration in Phetchabun province, where hundreds of Myanmar migrant workers objected to increased passport renewal fees imposed by their employers. The protest occurred in December 2024; daily wages were not part of the dispute.
Days later, Nantiwat Samart, a former director of Thailand’s top intelligence agency, published photos on his public Facebook account alleging that “seditious” Myanmar migrant workers were demonstrating outside the UN office in Bangkok.
“Today, the Burmese migrants in Thailand have become seditious. They’re holding a demonstration in front of the UN office. Who can accept this? I cannot,” wrote Nantiwat, who also served as Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. His lengthy post gained more than 10,000 shares.
“I feel positive about migrant workers, but I cannot accept what they’re doing. They cannot engage in political activity,” he continued. “If they want to make any demands, they must go back to Burma, all of them. If they want to make any demand or fight against the Myanmar government, about rights, politics, or democracy, they are welcome to go back to their country. They cannot shut down our streets and demonstrate like this.”
Nantiwat also tied the alleged demonstration to misinformation surrounding the 700-baht pay. “As for the Burmese workers’ call for 700 baht… they should go see the MPs who like to cheer on Burmese migrant workers. I think they can pay.”
Many comments expressed outrage and called for action against migrant workers.
“We should just adopt [US-President] Trump’s policies. Deport them all. We’ve grown too generous,” one comment said. Another read: “We have to deal with them by extreme measures, whether openly or secretly, especially their leaders.” Yet another said, “They already lost their country. Now they’re conspiring against Thailand. Send them back.”
However, the photos shared by Nantiwat had been taken out of context from different places and occasions – including a protest against then-Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in 2021, a pro-democracy demonstration by Myanmar migrants, and a Pride Parade in Bangkok’s shopping district.
Although journalists and fact checkers such as AFP made multiple efforts to debunk these posts, the repeated manipulation apparently achieved its objective: many Thai internet users now seem to associate migrant workers with the unfounded 700-baht minimum wage claim.
“Nowadays I get attacked by so many people on the internet. They edited my livestreams to spread more hatred,” Veera said. “All I want to do is speak out on behalf of Myanmar people, about the rights they are entitled to.”
Veera himself became a victim of physical violence instigated by the digital furore. In April, as he arrived at the UN building in Bangkok to voice out his objection to Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing’s official visit, he was intercepted by nationalist demonstrators who mobbed and assaulted him just metres from his destination. Police officers eventually intervened and took Veera away for his safety.
“Thais won’t tolerate this”
One of Veera’s fiercest critics is Akkarawut Kraisisombat, the conservative activist behind the group “Thais Won’t Tolerate This,” which often held rallies condemning Veera and his migrant worker campaigning.
Akkarawut first rose to fame participating in a political movement that adopted a hardline stance against the youth-led campaigns to reform the Thai monarchy and amend the royal defamation law; Akkarawut and fellow royalists argued such moves represented attempts to sabotage the royal institution.
Explaining his current role’s motive, Akkarawut said he wanted to stage shows of force through public demonstrations to dissuade Veera and other Myanmar activists from engaging in activities he deemed politically sensitive, such as Veera’s attempt to oppose the Myanmar leader’s Thailand trip.
“If the Myanmar military government hears about it, it might lead to conflicts between the two countries,” Akkarawut told HaRDstories. “For me, that constitutes a threat to Thailand’s national security.”
The group’s enthusiastic street actions have earned Akkarawut considerable media spotlight, whether escorting law enforcement officials in crackdowns on undocumented migrant workers, reporting foreign workers who flout restricted profession bans, or proposing a draft law making it illegal for migrant workers to be pregnant or give birth on Thai soil (though the bill failed to gain parliamentary support).
Whilst these stunts draw praise from many Thai internet users, they sow anxiety amongst migrant communities. One concerned worker was Than Zin*, an employee of a Burmese eatery in Samut Sakhon province. She told HaRDstories that “Thais Won’t Tolerate This” group members sometimes marched through her neighbourhood, presumably looking for undocumented workers, sending many migrants into hiding out of fear.
“Whenever we heard that they were coming to our neighbourhood, our shop would have so much food left unsold,” she said. “I’m worried that they’ll come into my shop one day, too.”
Akkarawut maintained his group does not target law-abiding migrant workers. He also pointed to his track record of assisting Myanmar workers cheated of pay by unscrupulous employers. When asked about the climate of fear his activism seems to have cast over the migrant community, Akkarawut blamed it on misinformation.
“It’s just a rumour spread by migrant workers. Some of them can’t even understand Thai properly. And those who live in Thailand long enough to understand Thai try to stir things up, that there are Thais opposed to migrant workers,” Akkarawut said. “So it led to misunderstanding that we have prejudice against all migrant workers, even though we’ve also helped migrant workers in the past.”
Migrants’ right to protest
Akkarawut also said his group wanted to highlight the economic and social toll caused by undocumented migrant workers’ reliance on Thailand’s healthcare services.
“This is what’s eating up our national budget. It’s a loss for Thai people. We want to protect our interest. We want our country to belong to Thai people,” he said. “I’ve never harassed or bullied migrant workers who are here legally.”
But rhetoric adopted by “Thais Won’t Tolerate This” members repeatedly veers into racial discrimination against Myanmar nationals, demonstrated by casual use of the term “seditious migrants” to describe any real or imagined effort by Myanmar migrant workers to organise themselves and demand fair compensation.
There’s also frequent pandering to historic rivalry between the two nations, dating back to the Ayutthaya era. A banner displayed by “Thais Won’t Tolerate This” at one rally depicted the Thai capital on fire with the caption: “From Ayutthaya to Bangkok: the Burmese burn, we build.”
And there’s the firm belief shared by the group’s leadership and supporters that Myanmar migrant workers, such as Veera, are not permitted any kind of political activity – contrary to clauses on the right to assembly regardless of nationality under the Thai Constitution, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Thailand is a signatory.
Such rights have been illustrated by occasional street rallies held by foreign nationals in Thailand, whether Ukrainians opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or Palestinians protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. Yet none of these gatherings resulted in the same backlash that followed unfounded rumours of demonstrations by Myanmar migrant workers.
Hate speech and information operations
Considering the outsized influence wielded by social media platforms on Thai virtual civic spaces – a 2024 survey estimated nearly 70 percent of Thais routinely use social media, higher than global averages – it may be inevitable that the same platforms, like Facebook or TikTok, are breeding grounds for hostility against Myanmar migrant workers.
A majority of the online posts surveyed by HaRDstories include criticism of the Thai government for perceived lax migrant control policies, whilst others feature derogatory or generalising remarks against certain politicians, Myanmar activists, and the migrants themselves. They include calls for mass deportation of Myanmar nationals, comparisons of migrants to animals who “bite the owners” or “breed many offspring,” and chilling suggestions that migrants be “eliminated.”
About 36.4 percent of the sample also mentions false or misleading content related to migration policies, such as the “blanket grant” of Thai citizenship to refugees, Veera’s alleged 700-baht daily wage ultimatum, and street demonstrations by Myanmar migrants that never happened.
Notably, many posts containing misinformation are published by anonymous accounts bearing characteristics of sockpuppets – fictitious online identities seemingly created solely for spreading deception.
The investigated accounts share active histories of publishing posts related to politics and the monarchy, whilst devoid of any clues about their personal lives. The TikTok user behind the now-viral video of Veera’s 700-baht wage mention, for example, fits this category.
Although HaRDstories cannot conclude whether these sockpuppet accounts may be linked to any organised Information Operation, Thai security forces are known to have employed similar tactics against those they deemed political opponents.
In the most recent high-profile allegation, a Toronto-based watchdog group traced a years-long coordinated social media harassment and doxxing campaign targeting Thailand’s pro-democracy movement to elements of the Royal Thai Armed Forces and Royal Thai Police, who reportedly run a joint cyberwarfare team.
The report was based partly on leaked confidential military and police documents that surfaced in March 2025. The same documents, brought to public attention by People’s Party politicians during a parliamentary debate, named MP Tisana as the target of at least 70 “negative perception” operations per month from August to October 2024 – the same period she came under fire for her parliamentary address about Myanmar refugees’ plight.
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When facts don’t matter
Whilst dubious content about migrant workers receives uncritical airtime from most Thai legacy media, several media organisations and journalists strive to counter them head-on. One such outlet is Cofact, an independent fact-checking network whose mission statement envisions “an open space where everyone is invited to combat misinformation.”
Its editor, Kultida Samabuddhi, said the platform has been closely monitoring – and debunking – misleading claims related to Myanmar migrants. She said the Thai public’s hazy understanding of migration and migrant workers proves easy prey for those who twist legitimate concerns into perceptions that Thais are being “exploited” by migrants in their own country.
“The methods aren’t so different from disinformation on other issues,” Kultida said. “They rely on blending a handful of facts with rhetorics that incite hatred.”
Meta, the company that owns and runs Facebook, has previously said its community standards consider refugees and migrants vulnerable to hate or extreme speech. For this reason, criticism focusing on the migrants themselves, rather than migration policies, would violate community standards – at least in theory.
The company has also touted its partnership with fact checkers, such as AFP, to combat misinformation by labelling misleading posts and adding important contexts readers should know.
But a review by HaRDstories found many viral posts spreading false news about Myanmar migrant workers remain visible on Facebook, without any accompanying labels or warnings.
Meta’s commitment to fighting misinformation was also undercut by an announcement from its owner, Mark Zuckerberg, that the company would end its fact-checking collaboration with third-party partners, citing the risk of alleged political bias.
The policy reversal has drawn widespread condemnation from media experts and misinformation watchdogs. It also resurrected the spectre of Facebook’s role in fanning hateful content targeting Myanmar’s Rohingya community, which has been linked to a full-scale ethnic cleansing campaign in 2014.
HaRDstories reached out to Meta for comments on the current waves of Facebook-based disinformation concerning migrant workers in Thailand. A company representative acknowledged the query in March and asked for more information a month later, but has not replied at publication time.
Sirada, the political scientist from Chiang Mai University, said she’s worried about the low level of media literacy in Thailand’s virtual world. Even members of the Thai middle class – a relatively educated group with easy access to news information – have shown susceptibility to misunderstanding about migrants and the complex aspects of cross-border migration, she said.
“People who think differently on these topics are less and less willing to voice their opinion, because they’re afraid of coming under attack themselves,” Sirada said. “If hate speeches continue to rise, issues and problems about migrant workers’ rights will also continue to be swept under the rug, without finding any solution.”
Zaw Min remains shaken by his memory of being arrested and fined for fundraising efforts for Myanmar civil war victims. He said he could only hope that Thai society would one day understand and sympathise with the people of Myanmar, especially those suffering under the country’s ruthless regime and ongoing civil war.
“I’d like to thank Thailand for providing us shelter when our country is gripped by war,” Zaw Min said. “But I’d also like to ask Thai people not to turn a blind eye when they see migrant workers being exploited or bullied.”
*Full names have been changed or withheld due to safety concerns for the sources.
Edited and translated from Thai by Teeranai Charuvastra
This project was supported by Internews
BEHIND THE DATA
HaRDstories focused data gathering on Meta’s Facebook due to the platforms’ predominance in the Thai online sphere. Searches for posts mentioning “Myanmar/Burmese” and names of public figures that contained derogatory terms between August 2024 and February 2025 yielded a sample of 129 posts. These posts were then categorised based on their rhetoric, timing, and authors.
For content containing falsehoods or misleading statements, HaRDstories used the website “Who Posted What” to trace original posts and identify when or through which account content was altered, as well as the source of original photos or videos.
Limitation: For the purpose of this research, HaRDstories only collected posts that explicitly mentioned Myanmar migrant workers; many more posts containing hate speech against vague or unidentified subjects were excluded due to this article’s scope.
