In June 2018, a 19-year-old British tourist told authorities that she had been raped while visiting the Thai holiday island of Koh Tao. The allegation was serious and the response was rapid, but not in keeping with the norms of a rape investigation. The local police first denied that the rape had occurred; they also described her accusation as “fake.”

Only when the story broke in the British and Thai press and on social media in August did the police finally act, but not to investigate the crime. Instead, they went after those who had shared the story. They first detained a dozen Thai residents for sharing news on the case. The residents were arrested under Thailand’s Computer-Related Crime Act and could face up to five years in prison and fines for spreading false information and damaging national security. The act has previously been used to prosecute those responsible for critical or defamatory Facebook posts about the country's monarchy or politicians, but rarely in criminal cases.

In an another remarkable move, police also obtained warrants to arrest the editor of an online Thai newspaper in Britain and the administrator of a dissident Facebook page in California, both of whom had shared or reported on the case.

“This event was quite surprising” said Wason Liwlompaisan, a digital activist and co-founder of the Thai tech news site Blognone. “I'm not sure why the police tried to arrest just these people in this case.”