BANGKOK: Thai media came under fire Wednesday for publishing images of a man killing his infant daughter in a Facebook Live video, a case that sparked outrage and raised fears of copycat killings.
The video, filmed Monday on the southern resort island of Phuket, showed Wuttisan Wongtalay hang his 11-month daughter Natalie from an abandoned building before taking his own life, according to police.
The footage was online for around 24 hours before it was removed on Tuesday, prompting cries for Facebook to move more swiftly to take down clips of grisly crimes and killings.
A Thai media body also slammed news outlets that showed graphic images of the crime.
At least one major daily printed an image of the murder-suicide on its front page Tuesday, while several TV channels aired segments of the video.
“The News Broadcasting Council of Thailand received complaints about reporting on a man who killed his child and himself via Facebook Live,” the organization said in a statement.
“Those reports were inappropriate,” it added, warning channels and newspapers against giving graphic coverage to similar crimes because they “may lead to copycats.”
Thai newspaper front pages are often splashed with bloody and lurid imagery.
But netizens expressed horror over the killing and said this time the coverage had gone too far.
“It was a news story, not a horror movie. Was it really necessary to release the soundbite?” one commentator wrote in the online forum Pantip, referring to audio played by some media from the Facebook Live stream.
Police said they believe the killing was motivated by jealousy. They said Wuttisan, 20, feared his 22-year-old partner Jiranuch Trirat was poised to leave him for a man with whom she had had another child.
Shortly after collecting her daughter’s body on Tuesday, Jiranuch issued a heartbreaking appeal to fellow parents.
“I want other mothers and fathers to use their heads — no matter how serious an argument you have, do not use force or think of killing people in the family,” she told reporters before breaking down in tears.
Funeral rites and prayers will take place over the coming days, with the girl’s burial expected on Saturday.
In a statement late Tuesday Facebook described the incident as “appalling.”
“There is absolutely no place for content of this kind on Facebook and it has now been removed,” the social network told AFP.
The killing was only the latest grisly crime to be published on Facebook, reviving questions about if and how such videos can be monitored.
Last week Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg vowed to address the issue after a man in the US state of Ohio broadcast footage of himself shooting a stranger dead.
The killer went on to fatally shoot himself after a massive manhunt and police chase.
Zuckerberg conceded that Facebook had “a lot of work” to do on the issue.
Facebook already has a 24-hour team of moderators who decide whether to remove content that is reported to them. Suicides and crimes are prioritized.
But the network it is limited by the sheer volume of content posted online each day.
A Thai police spokesman said officers moved quickly to alert the kingdom’s digital ministry about the video, which contacted Facebook about taking it down.
“We have only a handful of police officers on duty (to monitor the web) so we have to rely heavily on the public to keep us informed,” deputy national police spokesman Col. Krissana Pattanacharoen told AFP.
Thai media slammed for Facebook Live baby murder coverage
Thai media slammed for Facebook Live baby murder coverage
Built on ancient design, Indian Navy’s first stitched ship sails to Oman
- INSV Kaundinya is a 21-meter wooden ship modeled on painting from Ajanta Caves
- It was constructed by artisans from Kerala and inducted into Indian Navy last year
NEW DELHI: Built using a fifth-century stitched-ship technique, the Indian Navy’s Kaundinya vessel is approaching Oman, navigating the historic Arabian Sea route once traveled by ancient seafarers.
The 21-meter ship is a type of wooden boat, in which planks are stitched together using cords or ropes, a technique popular in ancient India for constructing ocean-going vessels.
The vessel set sail on its first transoceanic voyage from Porbandar in Gujarat on Dec. 29 and is expected to reach Muscat in mid-January.
“The exact date obviously depends on how weather conditions pan out. It has been a great experience thus far and the crew remains in high spirits,” Sanjeev Sanyal, an Indian economist who initiated the Kaundinya project and is part of the expedition, told Arab News.
“This is a very ancient route going back to the Bronze Age, and very active from ancient to modern times. We are trying to re-create the voyage on INSV Kaundinya, a ‘stitched’ ship using designs as they would have existed in the fifth century A.D. — a hull from stitched planks, steering oars, square sails, and so on.”
The ship was built by artisans from Kerala based on a painting found in the Ajanta Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Maharashtra state, where rock-cut monuments feature exquisite murals dating from the second century B.C. to the fifth century.
Funded by the Indian Ministry of Culture in 2023, the vessel was completed in February last year and inducted into the Indian Navy in May.
The Indian Navy collaborated with the Department of Ocean Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras to conduct model testing of the vessel’s hydrodynamic performance. The navy also tested the wooden mast system, which was built entirely without modern materials.
On its journey to Muscat, the ship is manned by an 18-member crew, which, besides Sanyal, consists of four officers, 12 sailors, and a medic.
“The voyage gives a good glimpse of how ancient mariners crossed the Indian Ocean — the changing winds and currents, the limitations of ancient technology,” Sanyal said.
“The square sail, for example, allows the ship to sail only up to a limited angle to the wind compared to a modern sailing boat. It also does not have a deep keel, so it rolls a lot. “Nonetheless, in good winds, it can do up to five knots — a very respectable speed. One reads about these voyages in ancient texts and (they are also) depicted in paintings and sculpture, but this provides a real experience.”
