He said he would begin his “retirement” from Facebook, Twitter and other social media on his 69th birthday on Sunday, April 2. “I will live most of the time at my vacation home in Pak Chong Valley.”

He wrote that he wished to thank all of his friends who have been visiting his page and chatting with him through good and bad times.

“I’ll still be around, but not so loud, at my personal website http://www.thaivision.com.”

However, it appeared that his Facebook page and Twitter had already been deactivated before the April deadline as his page and Twitter account were unavailable yesterday.

Somkiat is one of the veteran journalists in Thailand who have embraced modern media technology and social networking. He has been active on social networks, particularly Facebook, writing opinions on many issues with an emphasis on media ethics and international issues. Lately, his comments have focused on the Trump administration in the United States.

His announcement came a week after an apparent blunder when he wrote on Twitter criticising the Post Today newspaper website for publishing obscene photos and saying the paper did not have ethics. The comments referred to photos he saw while he was reading a news story on the Post Today’s online version.

“Reading newspapers nowadays is like reading porno books. The newspaper industry is now at its lowest point because the advertising money makes them ignore social morality.”

However, the photos came from Google AdSense, an advertising placement service, and were not connected directly to the paper itself. As Twitter users tried to explain the mistake and point out the misplaced criticism of the newspaper to Somkiat, he seemed to ignore them.

Google AdSense is designed for webmasters who want to display targeted text, video or image advertisements on websites, which then earn money when visitors view or click on the ads.

While the social media guru did not acknowledge the error in announcing his retirement, other savvy social media users wondered whether the failure to compute might have resulted in system |shutdown.