When I heard that a man was put in prison over writing bad reviews of a resort in Koh Chang, I was at first thinking that it was just another example of the rich people getting whatever they want. In this case it was them being able to put someone in jail over a bad review or two online. I will never agree with that and I was happy to see that Trip Advisor actually acted on the reviewer's behalf to get him out of jail by intervening and negotiating with the resort in question.
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Apparently, this "Wesley B" fellow was really going out of his way as this was not his only review about the establishment and his barrage of reviews from multiple accounts spanned across many different review sites. It was clear that he had a personal vendetta against the property and was not just going to let it go.
At first I kinda sided with him because although he was definitely being a dick, there wasn't anything illegal about what he was doing and the property could always take it up with Trip Advisor. Instead they went through the Thai legal system to located Wesley and have him arrested under some sort of anti-defamation law that I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about.
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I was proud of Trip Advisor when they locked the property's page and didn't allow bookings via their portal until the matter was resolved. They also paid all of Wesley Barnes' legal fees and negotiated a release from prison on his behalf. Barnes would later state that his efforts was a "a contrived attempt to sabotage the hotel." I am quite certain that this statement was required of him in order for the hotel to drop the charges.
Some new information has come to light though. Wesley Barnes, who immediately left Thailand for the USA after being released from jail... well it turns out that he has served years in prison in the USA for various charges from DUI, brandishing a firearm, illegal use of a firearm, and impersonating an officer of the law. It is also rumored that he was illegally working in Thailand as an English teacher. I'm gonna leave that one alone because there is no proof of it, but it wouldn't surprise me. There are plenty of people working illegally as English teachers in Thailand.
The resort in question has had hundreds of bogus 1-star reviews posted in retaliation and there is even another resort that just happens to share a name with it on another island that doesn't have any connection to the resort on Koh Chang in any capacity.
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So does this mean that his review was unjustified? I honestly don't care anymore. I just find it amusing that this person was the "hero" for review site fans for a while and there was a massive movement to have him released but as it turns out he wasn't such a great guy after all.