Somsak on Thursday posted a message on his Facebook page with a photo-capture of an email. He wrote that he had received the email from Facebook informing him that it would restrict the access to his page at a request from Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society.

In his own posted email, Facebook said the company received a court order from the ministry informing the social media giant that his post violated the Section 14 (3) of the Computer Crime Act B.E.2550(2007).

The content has been inaccessible since then, with a message saying the content was unavailable in Thailand. “You are unable to view this content because local law restrict our ability to show it,” it states.

Facebook did not respond to an inquiry from The Nation to confirm that the post was blocked by them.

The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society last month warned the public against directly or indirectly following, having contact with or spreading the messages of Somsak, scholar Pavin Chachavalpongpun and Scottish journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall through social media.

Facebook said earlier on Tuesday that it would consider blocking illegal content in Thailand on a case-by-case basis after receiving requests.

The statement was in response to local Internet service providers who last week agreed to pressure Facebook to delete the accounts of web pages with content deemed illegal in Thailand.

Asked by The Nation to react to a joint request by ISPs in Thailand to block 309 URLs deemed illegal by Thai courts and authorities, a Facebook spokesperson said it would scrutinise the content and consider blocking it.

“When governments believe that something on the Internet violates their laws, they may contact companies such as Facebook and ask us to restrict access to that content. When we receive such a request, it is scrutinised to determine if the specified content does indeed violate local laws,” the spokesperson said.

“If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted.”

The spokesperson added the practice was not specific to Thailand but applied to all countries.