Not ridiculous at all. Size of island doesn’t matter. The court is on mainland. Police station where resort filed complaint is where the guy has to go to hear the charges and to make his own statement. All ok so far.

The ridiculous part is your comment about the proceeding and size of island. The charges for violations of laws don’t get smaller the smaller the island is.

Ridiculous to you.. not so ridiculous to me. Lies can affect peoples lives & livelihood in catastrophic ways. He tried to harm some people and they asked for the protection of the law. To me there's nothing ridiculous there.

Perhaps he was warning people about an actually bad place?

You apparently have not read enough about the case and make assumptions that are irrelevant

Perhaps you have not read enough of the available information ?

I read the article. It sounded like he had a really bad experience at the Sea View Resort (on Wesley Barnes), so left reviews at lots of places warning people.

That's literally the whole point of writing reviews. To let others know what places are good, bad, etc.

Hopefully more people find out about the stupid treatment of this guy by the resort, as taking legal action against an ex-customer for giving bad reviews is far beyond reasonable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

I think the story in the original link is too one-sided to have a definitive opinion about the customer.. check the second link (from parent comment) for more details and see if it changes anything.

https://mothership.sg/2020/09/sea-view-resort-defamation-law...

This is opposite of Streisand effect. It's turning out to be terrific free publicity for this island resort with 4.5 stars on Trip Advisor, and actually portrays the resort as victim of a loser guest who was asked to pay a standard corkage fee, refused, then went off and accused the resort of slavery. I mean, just the top image on the Yahoo link, of a gorgeous beachfront, looks pretty great right now.

Here's a tip, when you visit, or move to, a foreign country, expect to live by its laws, not the laws of the country you left.

I don't know. The only thing I knew about Thailand is that it's a beautiful country.

Now that I know about this case, I wouldn't consider setting foot there out of principle... and fear.

And as someone who's in this field: this is going to have deep repercussions in the traveling industry and people will definitely rethink how reviews work for Thailand. Some friends from travel-related startups already posted the link in private chat.

That was a bad idea both for the hotel and for Thailand's travel industry.

Also: Sites like TripAdvisor also don't want to risk having potentially libellous accusations in their reviews, so they would certainly try to work together with the hotel (as they did, since they removed a previous review).

> It's turning out to be terrific free publicity for this island resort ...

Let me guess. They've had all of the negative reviews deleted, by threatening to put more people in jail?

That's one way to do it...

Are you implying that the resort is suing every customer who gives negative reviews? And if so where is the proof.

If not, then it’s just a silly statement made up by you.

Are you kidding?

They took a customer to court after that person had a bad experience and went around telling others about it.

Were the contents of the guys reviews all peaches and cream? Heck no. He comes off as a prick (my opinion).

But this place, clearly has form in making threats and getting the Thai legal system involved against negative reviewers.

How are we to know the resort isn't just making crap up and "abusing the system" to remove negative reviews?

That could as easily be the case, and seems more likely.

Your assumptions are just assumptions = not backed by facts.

In reality he could be Elvis born again and also to him laws would still apply.

If the resort would have made up the comments they say he posted, then they would be in much more legal trouble than he is now.

From statements that were posted as screenshots he might be also technically liable for violations of cybercrime act. But that hasn’t been announced or he hasn’t been charged yet for that.

From where I’m standing, the guy looks like someone who went overboard to not just complain but incriminate himself. That’s what counts.

Honestly, every business has customers that complain. You can’t please everyone. But if someone were to make certain statements about my business, employees etc, I would also use my legal rights to fight abuse.

I have myself complained for decades very harshly about other business on social media, their own TW/FB/Google profiles and haven’t been sued by anyone.

It would be interesting what the guy can state as his side of the story apart of the incriminating screenshots from online platforms.

Edit: typo

Yeah imagine police doing their job. The accused has to be read the charges and has the opportunity to make a formal statement. Does the size of the island matter in that legal case?

Not sure why this was downvoted. Police proceedings seemed to be reasonable and if one were to trust reports about the defendants posts the charges are justified.

If the defendant were in his home country he would have been arrested all the same for not following procedures and appearing when asked. Please check the whole story before you just downvote.

People often criticize the police in Thailand when they are doing their job (issuing tickets, lol) and also when they aren’t doing their job (when it’s not their jurisdiction or position). Thailand is not much different than other countries and has laws that need to be followed. Many foreigners including me live in Thailand for decades and manage it just fine to not get into trouble while posting harsh negative reviews online. :)