Most internet censorship in Thailand before the September 2006 military coup was focused on blocking pornographic sites. The following years have witnessed an often violent protest, regional unrest, emergency decisions, new cybercrime laws, and updated Internal Security Act. Year to year internet censorship has evolved, with its focus shifting to lÃÆ'¨se grandeur, national security, and political issues. In 2010, estimates put the number of websites blocked at more than 110,000. In December 2011, a dedicated government operation, the Cyber ​​Security Operations Center, was opened. Between opening and March 2014, the Center told the ISP to block 22,599 URLs.
Thailand's next 2014 coup has led to further restrictions on internet content in the country, using the powers of the National Council for Peace and Order.
Internet filtering in Thailand is selectively classified in the field of social, political, and Internet tools, and no screening evidence was found in conflict/security areas by the OpenNet Initiative in November 2011. Thailand is on the list of unlimited countries Reporters oversight in 2011.
Freedom House, in 2014 gave Thailand an overall score of 62 ("not free") (0 = best, 100 = worst) for Internet freedom, citing substantial political censorship and catching bloggers and other online users, ranking 52 of 65 countries. In 2013, Thailand is considered "partially free".
Video Internet censorship in Thailand
Histori
Internet censorship is conducted by the Royal Thai Police, Thai Communications Authority, and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT).
Before the September 2006 military coup, 34,411 websites were blocked by all three government agencies. The reasons cited are as follows:
- 60% pornography,
- 14% of sex instrument sales,
- 11% threat to national security, including criticism of the king, government or military,
- Ã, 8% illegal products and services,
- Ã, 4% copyright infringement,
- Ã, 2% illegal gambling, and
- The other 1%.
Although most censored sites are pornographic, this list also includes an anonymous proxy server that avoids web blocking and provides access to Internet gambling sites. Pornography and gambling are especially illegal in Thailand.
On September 19, 2006, the Thai military carried out a bloody coup against the elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government. The fifth official order signed by coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin on September 20, the first day after the coup, was to enforce web censorship and appoint Dr. Sitthichai Pokaiudom, "Official Military Censorship Sensor", as minister to head the MICT.
In October 2006, MICT blocked 2,475 websites with "demand"; on January 11, 2007, this number has increased to 13,435 websites, a jump of more than 500%. This causes the number of websites blocked to more than 45,000. All websites are secretly blocked and criteria for censorship have never been published by the government. However, MICT block lists must be available to ISPs for blocking.
With the enactment of a new cybercrimes law in June 2007 (the Computer Crime Act B.E.2550), Thailand is the only country in Asia that requires its government to obtain court permission to block Internet content (section 20). Illegal activities under Thailand's cybercrimes law include entering obscene, false or false data that may cause injury to others, the public, or national security; and data that constitute criminal offenses relating to national security or terrorism (section 14). Criminal liability is extended to ISPs that intentionally endorse or approve these illegal activities (section 15). This law creates civil and criminal liability for individuals who post photos of others publicly "may" damage their reputation or expose them to embarrassment, public resentment, or humiliation (section 16).
The ongoing political turmoil led Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej to declare a state of emergency on September 2, 2008. After its declaration, the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications ordered the ISP to immediately close around 400 websites and block 1,200 more, all allegedly disrupting the social or national security order endangered.
ICT Minister Mun Patanotai announced on October 29, 2008, plans to introduce an internet gateway system at a cost of up to 500 million baht to block sites that are considered promoting lÃÆ'¨se majestÃÆ'Â © material. The minister said the system could also be used to block other inappropriate sites, such as terrorist groups or sell pornography, but the ministry would focus first on websites with content that is considered insulting to the Thai kingdom.
The emergency was imposed on April 7 and revoked on December 22, 2010, but the Internal Security Act (ISA), which gave Thai leaders a vast power not restricted by legal procedures, remained valid.
URLs blocked by court order :
It is estimated that tens of thousands of additional URLs are blocked without a court order through informal requests or by an Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations.
Blocking reasons :
In late 2011, the government announced the establishment of the Cyber ​​Security Operations Center (CSOC). CSOC proactively monitors websites and social media, and provides ISPs with updated block lists on the fly, including posts on Twitter and Facebook. There is no judicial review of the CSOC block list.
Maps Internet censorship in Thailand
Method
The MICT blocked indirectly by informally "requesting" blocking of websites by 54 commercial and non-profit Internet service providers (ISPs) in Thailand. Although ISPs are not legally required to approve these "requests", MICT Permanent Secretary Kraisorn Pornsuthee wrote in 2006 that failing ISPs will be legally punished by the government in the form of bandwidth restrictions or even the loss of their operating licenses. This is a strong must to obey.
Website blocked by Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and/or IP address. However, only about 20% of blocked sites are identified by IP addresses; The remaining 80% can not be identified in a specific physical location. If these sites can be identified located in Thailand, legal action may be taken against their operator. So, the lack of IP addresses is a huge oversight.
Some technologies are used to censor the Internet such as caching, blacklisting of domain names or IP addresses, or simply redirecting to a government homepage. The blacklist of websites is beneficial for this type of web censorship because the webmaster will not realize that their website is blocked. This measure is said to be used to make unpleasant websites appear unavailable.
Many previously censored websites redirect users to sites hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) stating that the requested destination can not be displayed due to inappropriate content.
Internet censorship in Thailand is currently only for website access. Unlike China's "Great Firewall", censoring all Internet traffic including chat conversations via Instant Messaging, Thai Internet users can still interact with other users without censoring. However, the current policy is to use a transparent proxy system so that users receive system, server, TCP and browser error messages when trying to access blocked sites that direct users to believe that failure is caused on the Internet itself.
The search engine giant, Google and Yahoo !, were approached to investigate the potential capability to block access to cached web pages in Thailand, a common technique used to avoid blocking. The search engine was also asked about the blocking of keyword searches used effectively in China to censor the Internet. Google, at least, has announced publicly that it has no intention of blocking any site to users in Thailand.
Sample blocked website
September 19 Network against Coup d'Etat
Trends in censorship of anti-coup website as of 19 September The network against the Coup d'Etat, which had been blocked six times in February 2007, with the government refusing to recognize responsibility for blocking.
Southern Rebellion
Most of the sites on the political situation of violence in southern Muslim Thailand are blocked, especially those supporting the Patani Liberation Organization (PULO), a forbidden group that works for a separate Muslim state, including a PULO call to the UN for redress.
External news site
Some web pages from BBC One, BBC Two, CNN, Yahoo! News, Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, USA), and The Age (Melbourne, Australia) newspapers dealing with Thai political content are blocked. Recently, all Thaksin-in-exile international coverage has been blocked, including interviews with the ousted Prime Minister.
Web and discussion forum
Internet webboards and discussion forums like Midnight University, Prachatai.com and Pantip.com have all been blocked, making sensible political discussions extremely difficult. Prachatai and Pantip have chosen to do self-censor, monitor each discussion carefully, to keep it from being blocked.
Video sharing sites
Video sharing sites like Camfrog were recently blocked on the grounds that people "behave indecently" on Webcam. The block was then reversed when it was discovered that Camfrog provides the ultimate means of communication for the disabled, the elderly and the self-closing. Other video sharing sites like Metacafe remain blocked.
The entire video uploader website, YouTube, has been blocked several times, including a complete ban between April 4 and August 31, 2007 for videos deemed offensive to the monarchy. YouTube parent company, Google, has reportedly agreed to assist MICT in blocking individual videos, thereby making the rest legal to display in Thailand. The YouTube site block lasts for nearly five months, despite the fact that the video that was challenged by MICT was voluntarily removed by the user who posted it.
Website containing lÃÆ'¨se majestÃÆ' Â © content
The criminal code states that anyone who slanders, insults or threatens the king, queen, heir, or bupati, will be jailed for three to 15 years, but the law is widely interpreted to apply to the mention of the royalty institution that is less than flattering.
On April 29th 2010, Wipas Raksakulthai was arrested after posting to his Facebook account allegedly insulting King Bhumibol. The arrest was reportedly the first fee là © majestÃÆ' ©  © against Thai Facebook users. In response, Amnesty International named Wipas Thailand's first conscience prisoner in nearly three decades.
According to the Associated Press, the Computer Crimes Act has contributed to a sharp increase in the number of cases lÃÆ'¨se majestÃÆ'Â Â © try each year in Thailand. While between 1990 and 2005, about five cases were tried in Thai courts each year, since then about 400 cases have been tried - an increase of 1,500 percent.
Website about The King Never Smiles
Although the independent biography of Thailand's King Bhumibhol Adulyadej, The King Never Smiles by Paul Handley was published in July 2006, the sites related to the book have been blocked as far back as November 2005. Since there is no early copy of the passage or quote provided, these sites are censored based on the title of the book only. All sites with links to book sales are still blocked, including Yale University Press, Amazon, Amazon UK, and many others.
Wikipedia article
- Accessing the Wikipedia article in Bhumibol Adulyadej from Thailand on October 10, 2008, generates the announcement w3.mict.go.th: "Under Construction The site you are trying to view does not currently have a default page. upgrades and configurations. "Links are now redirected to:
The page is prohibited by court order. It could have an impact on or against the security of the Kingdom, public order or good morals. Thai: ?????????????????? web page ?????????? ???????? ???????????????????? ???? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????
- Blocking the Thai King's Simple Wikipedia page may be due to content regarding the king's succession seen by the Thai government unattractive or illegal under law là © lse majestÃÆ' ©. The fake error messages seen in Thailand while trying to view the king's Wikipedia page can be seen on YouTube.
- Thai baht articles have removed all images.
WikiLeaks
On June 28, 2010, access to wikileaks.org was blocked in Thailand. But the current website is currently accessible.
Internet Archive Wayback Machine
A few pages from Wayback Machine, an Archive.org project that in 2011 kept a snapshot of more than 150 billion web pages, blocked by MICT.
Aftermath 2014 coup d'etat
After Thailand's 2014 coup, the National Council for Peace and Order, the ruling junta, blocked the Daily Mail website after posting a video of the country's crown prince and party wife, violated the lÃÆ'¨se majestÃÆ'Â © Ã © law prohibits the publication of material that offends the Thai royal family. The junta, through the MICT, also instructed Internet providers in Thailand to temporarily block access to Facebook on May 28, 2014. Despite claims of technical problems by the junta, MICT's permanent secretary and Telenor, the parent of the Thai dtac mobile phone operator, the block was deliberate
Opposition to Internet censors
Disturbances in communication, including the Internet, are specifically prohibited by Article 37 and freedom of speech is protected by Article 39 of the "People's Constitution" of 1997. However, following the pattern of the past coup, the first act of the military is to abolish the constitution and begin drafting a new one. However, the MICT commissioned the law faculty of the Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University to find the law or gap that enabled the censorship, and several other organizations have petitioned the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRC).
Midnight University
Midnight University has filed simultaneously with the NHRC and the Thai Administrative Court. Because the courts and the State Council were unable to find laws allowing internet censorship, Midnight University has been granted an arrest warrant for further blocking, pending the settlement of its legal case. This makes Midnight University the only legally protected website in Thailand.
Freedom Against Thai Censorship (FACTS)
Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) petitioned against censorship before the NHRC on 15 November 2006. The FACT petition is still open for signatures and actively seeks international support. Although NHRC lacks enforcement capabilities and therefore can rarely extract evidence from government agencies, on January 26, 2007 MICT agreed to cooperate with NHRC.
On February 9, 2007, FACT filed an official information request with MICT under the Official Information Act of 1997. The request contained 20 questions and was signed by 257 individuals supported by 57 international civil liberties and human rights groups. The MICT refuses to answer the reasons for "national security" and "disruption to law enforcement"; blocking his secrets, the criteria used for censorship and the specific procedures he uses remain private. On March 23, 2007, FACT filed a complaint requiring an investigation within 60 days by the Official Information Commission at the prime minister's office. FACT states that, if the complaint fails, it will seek further detention directives against censorship through the Thai legal system.
Dimming software
Software applications to avoid web blocking are available. Tor is being used through software including XeroBank Browser (formerly Torpark) and Vidalia, and a number of other proxy solutions including Proxify, Six-Four, phproxy are also used. Freenet is another popular solution. Available for free download from the Internet, these packages are also published on disk by FACT. The MICT minister said in an interview at Bangkok Post that he did not block this method because "using a proxy to access illegal sites is illegal, while using a proxy to access legal sites is legal."
Current developments
In 2016, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand held a panel discussion entitled Facing Computer Crimes , summarizing:
See also
- Censorship in Thailand
- Internet in Thailand
References
External links
- "Sensor Website in Thailand - 2008-2011", News and Views Daily, 2Bangkok.com, July 31, 2010
- Wikileaks: Internet Censorship in Thailand, WikiLeaks, November 18, 2007; including a complete block list and detailed analysis
- Global Integrity: Internet Censorship, Comparative Studies; put Thailand's online censorship in a cross-country context.
- Website censorship statistics in Thailand, 2007-2012 by iLaw.or.th
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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