The former dean of Faculty of Mass Communication at Chiangmai University, Sodsri Paoinchan, and another Facebook user identified as former reporter Jetsada Sanudomchok changed their profiles to a Channel 3 logo with a prohibition symbol covering it.

The V for Thailand page changed its profile to black with a message slamming the channel for allowing Sorrayuth to appear on screen.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand page campaigned against the decision after Sorrayuth appeared on television yesterday morning.

The anti-corruption organisation’s Facebook page posted the front pages of 15 Thai newspapers whose lead stories were about the Sorrayuth verdict and called for the TV channel to take responsibility in the case.

The page also posted a photo plate to urge people to force the TV news host to step down.

People also shared photo plates with quotes by the Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, who was formerly the chief executive of a private company created that spoke out against Sorrayuth’s corruption in 2012. Meanwhile, others shared a columnist’s story saying that the Sorrayuth phenomenon is just middle-class envy, which was published in a weekly political magazine last year.

On his Facebook page, a user identified as Banyong Suwanpong pointed out that because of the uncomfortable phenomenon yesterday, there were a lot more posts with prohibition symbols covering the Channel 3 television logo online and people had changed their social media profile photo starting with academics.

“A phenomenon like this is rare in Thai journalism,” he wrote. He said as a journalist, he is uncomfortable with the situation. He suggested that Sorrayuth as Rai-Som’s managing director should consider taking himself off the air while maintaining his other work. That solution would show that both Channel 3 and Sorrayuth were not ignoring journalistic ethics, he said.

Another user, Bhume Bhumiratana, posted on Facebook that because many people still supported Sorrayuth, it showed a failure in Thai society. The case is similar to the dentist’s breach of a scholarship agreement, but this case has a more severe impact, as the culprit is the media, which as an industry is failing to regulate itself so it cannot really blame the government for its moves to regulate it.

If the media could not deal with this case, it would not be able to |protect freedom of expression and freedom of the press anymore. If even the media could not protect freedom of expression and freedom of the press, others could not either.

Atukkit Sawangsuk, a columnist, posted on Facebook that it was not a problem if Sorrayuth continued his TV news hosting duties since the lawsuit is not over and the court did forbid him from doing it. It is okay that Sorrayuth hosts a TV news show as long as he does not use his own TV programme for pleading and reporting his case alongside the other news stories.

Audiences watch Sorrayuth’s news show because of his professional journalism, is very keen on news topics and has interesting storytelling, not because they believe Sorrayuth is or isn’t corrupt.

Somsak Jeamteerasakul claimed on his Facebook page that the |verdict against Sorrayuth was a political polarisation and a double-|standard because corruption exists in Thai society and it depends on which side that the culprit is on.