Thailand’s Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) is studying potential new regulatory measures for digital platform services that could significantly expand the country’s digital platform governance framework. The ETDA has already conducted one public consultation session on the proposed measures and will hold additional sessions on August 25 and September 2, 2026, covering five types of platform services under the Royal Decree on Digital Platform Services B.E. 2565 (2022). The measures under study are preliminary and may be changed based on consultation outcomes.

Foundational Measures Applicable to All Platform Types

Seven baseline obligations would apply across all digital platform categories:

• Transparency reports. Platforms must prepare and publish statistical reports on platform governance activities, including the number of content items removed or restricted and appeal outcomes, in a comparable format.
• Notice and action mechanism. Platforms must establish minimum standards for channels to report potentially illegal content or goods, conduct case-by-case review, provide explanations when content is removed or restricted, and maintain an internal appeals channel.
• Rights over automated decision-making. Users significantly affected by automated decisions are granted rights to request an explanation, request human review, and contest the decision.
• Service level agreements (SLAs). Platforms must publish minimum standards for response times, processing timelines, progress notifications, and remedies for incidents on the platform.
• Labeling of AI-generated content. Content generated or modified by AI must carry visible labels and machine-readable metadata, with exceptions for creative works that disclose AI use in a nonmisleading manner.
• Prohibition of dark patterns. User interface designs that deceive, coerce, or distort user decision-making are prohibited, including hiding critical information, creating false urgency, or making service cancellation unreasonably difficult.
• Business user fairness. Platforms must meet minimum standards for the treatment of sellers, workers, and content creators, including advance notice of term changes, explanation of account suspensions or visibility reductions, and human-reviewed internal appeals.

Sector-Specific Measures

Online Marketplaces

Proposed measures include anti-self-preferencing rules, advance notice of fee changes, ranking parameter disclosure, advertisement labeling, external algorithm audits for large platforms, and non-profiling recommendation options. Additional requirements include seller identity verification, illegal goods takedown mechanisms, integration with TIS/FDA product databases, payment-hold systems, trusted-flagger programs, personalized pricing transparency, and profiling opt-out rights.

Social Media

Platforms must implement scam-ad prevention, advertiser verification for high-risk advertisers, data governance frameworks, and non-profiling content recommendations. Services accessible by minors must prioritize child safety by design, and large platforms must manage disinformation risks.

Sharing Economy

Sharing economy platforms face the most extensive new obligations, including worker fairness measures covering commission criteria, expense deductions, and task allocation, as well as job-matching and compensation transparency, antidiscrimination rules, and compensation audits with labor agencies. Additional requirements include dynamic pricing transparency, emergency pricing caps, human review for income-affecting automated decisions, location and biometric data restrictions, and dark pattern prohibitions.

Audio-Visual and Music Sharing

Key measures include copyright takedown SLAs, accessible copyright matching tools with human-reviewed contest channels, creator fairness for monetization and revenue sharing, ad volume controls, prohibition of profiling-based ads to minors, and recommendation-system transparency.

Virtual Assistants

Key measures include answer-selection transparency, sponsored response labeling, high-risk sector guidelines for health and finance, voice data controls, prohibition of human-like personas for commercial persuasion, child protections, synthetic-content watermarking, and voice-cloning restrictions.

Long-Term Policy Issues for Legislative Amendment

The consultation materials also present five long-term policy issues to gather preliminary feedback for potential future initiatives to enact or amend primary legislation:

• Platform Economy Act: Defining “gatekeeper” platforms and imposing specific obligations such as anti-self-preferencing rules and restrictions on using non-public seller data to compete against sellers.
• Conditional platform liability: Establishing a safe harbor framework coupled with liability when platforms ignore or unreasonably delay action after proper notice.
• Employment presumption for platform workers: Creating a legal presumption of employment status that would apply when certain control criteria are met, with baseline worker rights regardless of final classification.
• Anti-self-preferencing for virtual assistant providers:. Prohibiting large virtual assistant providers from recommending their own products or services over those of others, or placing them in preferential positions, without quality-based justification.
• Systemic risk assessment and independent audit for virtual assistant providers: Requiring large virtual assistant providers to conduct regular systemic risk assessments, undergo independent audits, and publish reports.

Engagement

These proposed regulations appear modeled on the EU’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act framework, adapted for Thailand’s regulatory context. Clients operating digital platforms in Thailand should actively participate in the remaining public consultation sessions, scheduled in August and September 2026, and begin assessing the compliance gap between their current operations and these proposed requirements.