The 2010 Code of Conduct for Social Media

Endorsed by the National Press Council of Thailand & the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand

At present, social media has played a major role in disseminating information, expressing people’s opinions and publicizing achievement of news organizations. With these outstanding qualifications, mass media outlets including newspaper, radio, and television and internet website have been attempting to make use of the social media in order that they will have access to different groups of social media users.

However, concerns have been raised that some mass media organizations would use the social media in an inappropriate way. To deal with the problem, the Mass Media Organizations assigned the Information Technology Press Club, the Thai Journalists Association, the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand, the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association, the Thai Webmaster Association, the Society Online News Providers, mass media academics and law and information technology experts held forums to gather  public opinions on the code of conduct for social media in mass media organizations and drafted it.

The code of conduct for social media in mass media is as follows:

Chapter 1

General Introduction

1.Social media mean a communication channel through internet website and its programs such as twitter.com, facebook.com, youtube.com and weblog.

Mass Media Organization means all organization members under the National Press Council of Thailand and the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand.

Media operator means newspaper journalists certified by the 1997 Charter of the Press Council of Thailand and the 2009 News Broadcasting Council of Thailand.

Chapter 2

Code of Conduct for Social Media in Mass Media Outlets

2.Mass media outlets that make use of the social media in disseminating  their information and expressing their opinions must strictly respect code of ethics of the National Press Council of Thailand and the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand.

3.  Mass media outlets that report news through the social media should write references of their organizations as follows;

3.1 the name of the organization

3.2 the details, symbols and abbreviation of the organization

3.3  the identity of the organization .

4. Mass media outlets that disseminate information through the social

media should abide by code of ethics, regulations and code of conduct of the media organizations stated in the first chapter. They must not create anger and hatred among people in society and must not incite violence that will lead to conflicts in the country.

5. Mass media outlets must respect and acknowledge information, message and pictures of other social media users.

Copying messages and remarks from the social media can be done if mass media outlets are allowed by the messages and remarks’ owners.

In case that mass media outlets are necessary to publicize information and report news that they obtain from using the social media. They must make a reference of the source of news and information in order to express the respect of the rights of ownership and possession.

Chapter 3

Code of Conduct for Social Media of Media Operators

6. Media operators can disseminate information and express their opinions through the social media. It is divided as follows:

6.1 Media operators who use name of media organizations as user account should strictly abide by code of media ethics particularly accuracy and balance as well as the use of proper language.

6.2 Media operators who use name of themselves as user account should be careful in disseminating personal information and expressing their own opinions that could lead to media ethics violation.

7. Media operators should realize the difference between news writing and opinion pieces. They should be more careful about summarizing a text accurately without plagiarizing it and disseminating the same information repeatedly.

8. Media operators should realize strict time constraints when reporting the news.

9. Media operators should realize that social media does not mean personal media. Therefore all reported information and messages will be recorded and be legally binding.

10. Media operators should be aware of violations of personal rights of others, particularly the rights of women and children in any news reporting and opinion expression concerning obscene and violent pictures of the abused victims.

11. Media operators should be careful about news-gathering process from the social media by examining the news sources and referring to them. If it is possible, they should directly refer to primary sources.

If any media operators want to report news from a closed-door meeting through their social media, they must get permission from the meeting organizer.

12. If media operators make mistakes in their news reporting and commentary through the social media until they cause damages to others. The media operators must delete or correct that information from their files immediately and they must pose apology and remarks of the damaged persons on their social media.

The National Press Council of Thailand

The News Broadcasting Council of Thailand

9 November 2010