Gov’t Caught Using Doctored Photo of Minister Wading in Flood

Image: ข่าวสำนักงานรัฐมนตรี ศธ. / Facebook

BANGKOK — The administrator of the education ministry’s official Facebook page apologized Tuesday for publishing an altered photo that purported to show a senior official visiting a flooded area.

The photo was posted online yesterday by the Ministry of Education’s public relations. It seemingly featured Deputy Education Minister Kanokwan Wilawan wading through the flood, with a caption saying that Kanokwan is concerned about the safety of students and school staff in areas hit by tropical storm Dian Mu over the weekend.

“Teacher Oh is closely monitoring the flood in many areas, including the situation of schools and education facilities under the ministry’s supervision,” part of the caption says, using Kanokwan’s nickname.

But social media users soon noticed that the photo was most likely edited, with Kanokwan’s image cropped and pasted into a background image showing an unidentified flooded street.

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Some users also found the exact same image of Kanokwan visiting a flooded area back in 2020, confirming the forgery.

“Will she be charged for violating the Computer Crime Act,” one person commented, referring to a law that criminalized spreading false information on the internet.

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After netizens called out the obvious doctoring and flooded the ministry’s PR page with scathing jokes, the ministry deleted the photo and issued an apology on Tuesday.

The statement said the public relations team was solely responsible for the altered image, and insisted that Kanokwan was not involved in the process.