Internet censorship in Thailand
Encyclopedia
Internet censorship in Thailand was classified as substantial in the social area, as selective in the political and Internet tools areas, and no evidence of filtering was found in the conflict/security area by the OpenNet Initiative
in May 2007. Thailand
is on Reporters Without Borders
list of countries under surveillance in 2011. And Thailand's Internet Freedom status is rated "Not Free" in the Freedom on the Net 2011 report by Freedom House
, which cites substantial political censorship and the arrests of bloggers and other online users.
, the Communications Authority of Thailand
, and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT).
Prior to the September 2006 military coup d'état, 34,411 web sites were blocked by all three government agencies. The cited reasons were as follows:
Although the great majority of censored sites were pornographic, the list also includes anonymous proxy servers which circumvent Web-blocking and provide access to Internet gambling sites. Pornography and gambling are specifically illegal in Thailand.
On 19 September 2006, the Thai military staged a bloodless coup d'état against the government of elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
. The fifth official order signed by coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin
on 20 September, the first day following the coup, was to enforce Web censorship and appoint Dr. Sitthichai Pokaiudom, “The Official Censor of the Military Coup”, Minister to head MICT.
In October 2006, MICT blocked 2475 websites by "request"; by 11 January 2007, this number had risen to 13,435 websites, a jump of more than 500%. This brought the total number of websites blocked to more than 45,000. All websites are blocked in secret and the criteria for censorship has never been made public by government. However, the MICT blocklist must be made available to ISPs to block.
With the enactment of a new cybercrimes law in June 2007 (Act on Computer Crime B.E. 2550), Thailand became one of the only countries in Asia to require its government to obtain court authorization to block Internet content (section 20). Illegal activities under the Thai cybercrimes law include inputting obscene data, forged or false data likely to cause injury to another person, the public or national security; and data which constitutes a criminal offense relating to national security or terrorism (section 14). Criminal liability is extended to ISPs that intentionally support or consent to these illegal activities (section 15). The law creates civil and criminal liability for individuals who publicly post photographs of others that are “likely to” impair their reputation or expose them to shame, public hatred or contempt (section 16).
Ongoing political turmoil led prime minister Samak Sundaravej to declare a state of emergency on 2 September 2008. Upon his declaration, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology ordered ISPs to immediately shut down around 400 Web sites and block 1,200 more, all alleged to disturb social order or endanger national security.
ICT Minister Mun Patanotai announced on 29 October 2008, plans to introduce an internet gateway system costing up to 500 million baht to block sites considered to promote lèse majesté
materials. The Minister said the system could also be used to block other websites considered inappropriate, such as those of terrorist groups or selling pornography, but the ministry will focus first on websites with content deemed insulting to the Thai monarchy.
A state of emergency was imposed on 7 April and lifted on 22 December 2010, but the Internal Security Act (ISA), which provides Thailand’s leaders with broad powers unrestricted by judicial procedure, remains in place.
URLs blocked by court order:
It is estimated that tens of thousands of additional URLs are blocked without court orders through informal requests or under the Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations.
Reasons for blocking:
Estimates put the number of websites blocked at over 110,000 and growing in 2010.
s (ISPs
). Although ISPs
are not legally required to accede to these “requests”, MICT Permanent Secretary Kraisorn Pornsuthee wrote in 2006 that ISPs
who fail to comply will be punitively sanctioned by government in the form of bandwidth restriction or even loss of their operating license. This is a powerful compulsion to comply.
Websites are blocked by Uniform Resource Locator
(URL) and/or IP address
. However, only about 20% of blocked sites are identified by IP address; the remaining 80% are unable to be identified at a specific physical location. If these sites could be identified as being located in Thailand, legal action could be taken against their operators. Thus, lack of IP address is a major oversight.
Several technologies are employed to censor the Internet such as caching
, blacklisting domain name or IP address, or simply redirection to a government homepage. Blacklisting the website is beneficial for this kind of web censorship as the webmasters would be unaware that their websites are being blocked. This measure is said to be used to make unpleasant websites appear unavailable.
Many censored web sites previously redirected the user to a site hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) which states that the requested destination could not be displayed due to improper content.
Censorship of the Internet in Thailand is currently for website access only. Unlike China
's “Great Firewall”, which censors all Internet traffic including chat conversation via Instant Messaging
, Thai Internet users are still able to interact with other users without being censored. However, current policy is to use a system of transparent proxies so that the user receives system, server, TCP and browser error messages when trying to access blocked sites leading the user to believe that the failure is caused in the Internet itself.
Search engine giants, Google
and Yahoo!
, were approached to investigate the potential capability for blocking access to their cached web pages in Thailand, a common technique used to circumvent blocking. The search engines were also asked about keyword search blocking which is used effectively in China to censor the Internet. Google, at least, has made public a statement that it has no intention of blocking any sites to users in Thailand.
, which has been blocked six times as of February 2007, with the government refusing to acknowledge responsibility for the blocking.
are blocked, specifically those in support of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO), a banned group which works for a separate Muslim state, including PULO's appeals to the United Nations for redress.
, BBC Two
, CNN
, Yahoo! News
, the Post-Intelligencer newspaper (Seattle, USA), and The Age
newspaper (Melbourne, Australia) dealing with Thai political content are blocked. More recently, all international coverage of Thaksin-in-exile has been blocked, including interviews with the deposed PM.
have all been blocked, making reasonable political discussion very difficult. Prachatai and Pantip have chosen to self-censor, closely monitoring each discussion, in order to remain unblocked.
The entire video upload website, YouTube
, has been blocked several times, including a complete ban between 4 April and 31 August 2007 due to a video which was considered to be offensive to the monarchy; YouTube's parent company, Google, was reported to have agreed to assist MICT in blocking individual videos, thus making the rest legal to display in Thailand. The YouTube site block persisted for nearly five months, despite the fact that the video challenged by MICT was voluntary deleted by the user who posted it.
On 29 April 2010, Wipas Raksakulthai
was arrested following a post to his Facebook
account allegedly insulting Bhumibol. The arrest was reportedly the first lèse majesté
charge against a Thai Facebook user. In response, Amnesty International
named Wipas Thailand's first prisoner of conscience
in nearly three decades.
According to the Associated Press
, the Computer Crime Act has contributed to a sharp increase in the number of lèse majesté cases tried each year in Thailand. While between 1990 and 2005, roughly five cases were tried in Thai courts each year, since that time about 400 cases have come to trial--a 1,500 percent increase.
by Paul Handley was published in July 2006, websites concerning the book had been blocked as far back as November 2005. As no advance reading copies or excerpts were made available, these sites were censored based on the book's title alone. All sites with links to sales of the book are still blocked, including Yale University Press
, Amazon
, Amazon UK, and many others.
, a [Archive.org]] project which as of 2011 stores snapshots of over 150 billion web pages, are being blocked by MICT.
(NHRC).
On 9 February 2007, FACT filed an official information request with MICT under the Official Information Act of 1997. The request contains 20 questions and is signed by 257 individuals supported by 57 international civil liberties and human rights groups. The MICT refused to reply citing grounds of “national security” and “interference with law enforcement”; its secret blocklist, criteria used for censorship and specific procedures it uses remain private. On 23 March 2007, FACT filed a complaint requiring an investigation within 60 days by the Official Information Commission under the Prime Minister's Office. FACT stated that, should the complaint fail, it would seek a restraining order against further censorship through Thailand's legal system.
is in use through software including XeroBank Browser (formerly Torpark) and Vidalia
, and a number of other proxied 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 Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister has said in an interview in the Bangkok Post
that he has not blocked these methods because "using proxies to access illegal sites are illegal, whereas using proxies to access legal sites is legal."
OpenNet Initiative
The OpenNet Initiative is a joint project whose goal is to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employs a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigators, to determine the extent and nature of government-run...
in May 2007. Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
is on Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
list of countries under surveillance in 2011. And Thailand's Internet Freedom status is rated "Not Free" in the Freedom on the Net 2011 report by Freedom House
Freedom House
Freedom House is an international non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights...
, which cites substantial political censorship and the arrests of bloggers and other online users.
History
Internet censorship is conducted by the Royal Thai PoliceRoyal Thai Police
The Royal Thai Police are the national police of Thailand.-About:Primary responsibility for the maintenance of public order through enforcement of the kingdom's laws was exercised by the Thailand National Police Department , a subdivision of the Ministry of Interior...
, the Communications Authority of Thailand
CAT Telecom
CAT Telecom Public Company Limited is the state-owned company that runs Thailand’s international telecommunications infrastructure, including its international gateways, satellite, and submarine cable networks connections. As of February 2008, it had 5,562 employees.-Services:Until recently, CAT...
, and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT).
Prior to the September 2006 military coup d'état, 34,411 web sites were blocked by all three government agencies. The cited reasons were as follows:
- 60% pornographyPornographyPornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, - 14% sale of sex equipment,
- 11% threats to national securityNational securityNational security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
, which includes criticisms of the king, government or military, - 8% illegal products and services,
- 4% copyright infringement,
- 2% illegal gambling, and
- 1% other.
Although the great majority of censored sites were pornographic, the list also includes anonymous proxy servers which circumvent Web-blocking and provide access to Internet gambling sites. Pornography and gambling are specifically illegal in Thailand.
On 19 September 2006, the Thai military staged a bloodless coup d'état against the government of elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
Thaksin Shinawatra
Thaksin Shinawatra is a Thai businessman and politician, who was Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006, when he was overthrown in a military coup....
. The fifth official order signed by coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin
Sonthi Boonyaratglin
General Sonthi Boonyaratglin is former Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Army and former head of the Council for National Security, the military junta that ruled the kingdom. He is the first Muslim in charge of the mostly Buddhist army...
on 20 September, the first day following the coup, was to enforce Web censorship and appoint Dr. Sitthichai Pokaiudom, “The Official Censor of the Military Coup”, Minister to head MICT.
In October 2006, MICT blocked 2475 websites by "request"; by 11 January 2007, this number had risen to 13,435 websites, a jump of more than 500%. This brought the total number of websites blocked to more than 45,000. All websites are blocked in secret and the criteria for censorship has never been made public by government. However, the MICT blocklist must be made available to ISPs to block.
With the enactment of a new cybercrimes law in June 2007 (Act on Computer Crime B.E. 2550), Thailand became one of the only countries in Asia to require its government to obtain court authorization to block Internet content (section 20). Illegal activities under the Thai cybercrimes law include inputting obscene data, forged or false data likely to cause injury to another person, the public or national security; and data which constitutes a criminal offense relating to national security or terrorism (section 14). Criminal liability is extended to ISPs that intentionally support or consent to these illegal activities (section 15). The law creates civil and criminal liability for individuals who publicly post photographs of others that are “likely to” impair their reputation or expose them to shame, public hatred or contempt (section 16).
Ongoing political turmoil led prime minister Samak Sundaravej to declare a state of emergency on 2 September 2008. Upon his declaration, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology ordered ISPs to immediately shut down around 400 Web sites and block 1,200 more, all alleged to disturb social order or endanger national security.
ICT Minister Mun Patanotai announced on 29 October 2008, plans to introduce an internet gateway system costing up to 500 million baht to block sites considered to promote lèse majesté
Lèse majesté
Lese-majesty is the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.This behavior was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman republic in Ancient Rome...
materials. The Minister said the system could also be used to block other websites considered inappropriate, such as those of terrorist groups or selling pornography, but the ministry will focus first on websites with content deemed insulting to the Thai monarchy.
A state of emergency was imposed on 7 April and lifted on 22 December 2010, but the Internal Security Act (ISA), which provides Thailand’s leaders with broad powers unrestricted by judicial procedure, remains in place.
URLs blocked by court order:
Year | Court Orders | Blocked URLs |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 1 | 2 |
| 2008 | 13 | 2071 |
| 2009 | 64 | 28,705 |
| 2010 | 39 | 43,908 |
| |
||
| Total | 117 | 74,686 |
It is estimated that tens of thousands of additional URLs are blocked without court orders through informal requests or under the Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations.
Reasons for blocking:
| URLs blocked |
Percent |
Reason |
| 57,330 | 77% | lèse majesté content (content that defames, insults, threatens, or is unflattering to the King, includes national security and some political issues) |
| 16,740 | 22% | pornographic content |
| 357 | <1% | information about abortion Abortion Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced... |
| 246 | <1% | content related to gambling |
Estimates put the number of websites blocked at over 110,000 and growing in 2010.
Methods
MICT blocks indirectly by informally “requesting” the blocking of websites by Thailand's 54 commercial and non-profit Internet Service ProviderInternet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s (ISPs
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
). Although ISPs
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
are not legally required to accede to these “requests”, MICT Permanent Secretary Kraisorn Pornsuthee wrote in 2006 that ISPs
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
who fail to comply will be punitively sanctioned by government in the form of bandwidth restriction or even loss of their operating license. This is a powerful compulsion to comply.
Websites are blocked by Uniform Resource Locator
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
(URL) and/or IP address
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
. However, only about 20% of blocked sites are identified by IP address; the remaining 80% are unable to be identified at a specific physical location. If these sites could be identified as being located in Thailand, legal action could be taken against their operators. Thus, lack of IP address is a major oversight.
Several technologies are employed to censor the Internet such as caching
Proxy server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server...
, blacklisting domain name or IP address, or simply redirection to a government homepage. Blacklisting the website is beneficial for this kind of web censorship as the webmasters would be unaware that their websites are being blocked. This measure is said to be used to make unpleasant websites appear unavailable.
Many censored web sites previously redirected the user to a site hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) which states that the requested destination could not be displayed due to improper content.
Censorship of the Internet in Thailand is currently for website access only. Unlike China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
's “Great Firewall”, which censors all Internet traffic including chat conversation via Instant Messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
, Thai Internet users are still able to interact with other users without being censored. However, current policy is to use a system of transparent proxies so that the user receives system, server, TCP and browser error messages when trying to access blocked sites leading the user to believe that the failure is caused in the Internet itself.
Search engine giants, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, were approached to investigate the potential capability for blocking access to their cached web pages in Thailand, a common technique used to circumvent blocking. The search engines were also asked about keyword search blocking which is used effectively in China to censor the Internet. Google, at least, has made public a statement that it has no intention of blocking any sites to users in Thailand.
19 September Network against Coup d'Etat
A trend is increased censorship of anti-coup websites such as 19 September Network against Coup d'Etat19 September Network against Coup d'Etat
The 19 September Network against Coup d'État is a Thai activist group organized to protest the 2006 Thailand coup d'état.According to Sombat Ngamboon-anong, who registered the 19sep.org, The Network's website, was shut down by the hosting service on orders of the Thai Information and...
, which has been blocked six times as of February 2007, with the government refusing to acknowledge responsibility for the blocking.
Southern insurgency
Most sites concerning the violent political situation in Thailand's Muslim SouthSouth Thailand insurgency
An ethnic separatist insurgency is taking place in Southern Thailand, predominantly in the Malay Pattani region, made up of the three southernmost provinces of Thailand. Violence has increasingly spilling over into other provinces...
are blocked, specifically those in support of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO), a banned group which works for a separate Muslim state, including PULO's appeals to the United Nations for redress.
External news sites
Some web pages from BBC OneBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
, BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, Yahoo! News
Yahoo! News
Yahoo! News is an Internet-based news aggregator provided by Yahoo!. It features Top Stories, U.S. National, World, Business, Entertainment, Science, Health, Weather, Most Popular, News Photos, Op/Ed, and Local news....
, the Post-Intelligencer newspaper (Seattle, USA), and The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
newspaper (Melbourne, Australia) dealing with Thai political content are blocked. More recently, all international coverage of Thaksin-in-exile has been blocked, including interviews with the deposed PM.
Webboards and discussion forums
Internet webboards and discussion forums such as Midnight University, Prachatai.com and Pantip.comPantip.com
Pantip.com is a popular Thai-language website and discussion forum. As of April 2008, Pantip.com was one of the top 10 websites in Thailand, along with rival Thai portal Sanook.com...
have all been blocked, making reasonable political discussion very difficult. Prachatai and Pantip have chosen to self-censor, closely monitoring each discussion, in order to remain unblocked.
Video sharing sites
Video sharing sites such as Camfrog have recently been blocked on the grounds that people were "behaving indecently" on webcams; the block was later reversed when it was discovered that Camfrog provided a principal means of communication for the handicapped, elderly and shut-ins. Other video sharing sites such as Metacafe remain blocked however.The entire video upload website, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, has been blocked several times, including a complete ban between 4 April and 31 August 2007 due to a video which was considered to be offensive to the monarchy; YouTube's parent company, Google, was reported to have agreed to assist MICT in blocking individual videos, thus making the rest legal to display in Thailand. The YouTube site block persisted for nearly five months, despite the fact that the video challenged by MICT was voluntary deleted by the user who posted it.
Websites containing lèse majesté content
The Criminal Code states that whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, Queen, the heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be jailed for three to 15 years, but the statute is broadly interpreted to apply to any mention of the institution of royalty that is less than flattering.On 29 April 2010, Wipas Raksakulthai
Wipas Raksakulthai
Wipas Raksakulthai is a Thai businessman currently serving a sentence for lèse majesté following a Facebook post to his account perceived to criticize King Bhumibol...
was arrested following a post to his Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
account allegedly insulting Bhumibol. The arrest was reportedly the first lèse majesté
Lèse majesté
Lese-majesty is the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.This behavior was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman republic in Ancient Rome...
charge against a Thai Facebook user. In response, Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
named Wipas Thailand's first prisoner of conscience
Prisoner of conscience
Prisoner of conscience is a term defined in Peter Benenson's 1961 article "The Forgotten Prisoners" often used by the human rights group Amnesty International. It can refer to anyone imprisoned because of their race, religion, or political views...
in nearly three decades.
According to the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, the Computer Crime Act has contributed to a sharp increase in the number of lèse majesté cases tried each year in Thailand. While between 1990 and 2005, roughly five cases were tried in Thai courts each year, since that time about 400 cases have come to trial--a 1,500 percent increase.
Websites about the book The King Never Smiles
Although the independent biography of Thailand's King Bhumibhol Adulyadej, The King Never SmilesThe King Never Smiles
The King Never Smiles is an unauthorized biography of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej by Paul M. Handley, a freelance journalist who lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Thailand. It is published by Yale University Press and was released in 2006...
by Paul Handley was published in July 2006, websites concerning the book had been blocked as far back as November 2005. As no advance reading copies or excerpts were made available, these sites were censored based on the book's title alone. All sites with links to sales of the book are still blocked, including Yale University Press
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, Amazon UK, and many others.
Wikipedia articles
- Accessing the Wikipedia article on Bhumibol AdulyadejBhumibol AdulyadejBhumibol Adulyadej is the current King of Thailand. He is known as Rama IX...
from Thailand on 10 October 2008, led to a w3.mict.go.th announcement: "Under Construction The site you are trying to view does not currently have a default page. It may be in the process of being upgraded and configured." The link is now redirected to:
- The blocking of the King of Thailand's Wikipedia page may be due to content regarding the king's succession that the Thai Government views unappealing or illegal under its lèse majestéLèse majestéLese-majesty is the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.This behavior was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman republic in Ancient Rome...
laws. The fake error message seen in Thailand when attempting to view the king's Wikipedia page can be seen on YouTube.
- The article on Thai-baht banknotes has had all images removed.
Wayback Machine Internet archive
Some pages from the Wayback MachineWayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital time capsule created by the Internet Archive non-profit organization, based in San Francisco, California. It is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. The service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the Archive calls a "three...
, a [Archive.org]] project which as of 2011 stores snapshots of over 150 billion web pages, are being blocked by MICT.
Opposition to Internet censorship
Interference in communication, including the Internet, was specifically prohibited by Section 37 and free speech protected by Section 39 of the 1997 “People's” Constitution. However, following the pattern of past coups, the military's first action was to scrap the Constitution and begin drafting a new one. Nevertheless, the MICT commissioned the Law Faculty of Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University to find laws or loopholes which permit such censorship, and several other organizations have filed petitions with Thailand's National Human Rights CommissionNational Human Rights Commission (Thailand)
The Thai National Human Rights Commission was established on July 13, 2001 as a national human rights institution. From its inception to May 31, 2005, it received a total of 2,148 complaints of which 1,309 had already been investigated, 559 were still in the process of investigation, and 209 were...
(NHRC).
Midnight University
Midnight University has filed petitions simultaneously with the NHRC and Thailand's Administrative Court. As the Court and the Council of State can find no laws which permit Internet censorship, Midnight University has been granted a restraining order against further blocking, pending resolution of its legal case. This makes Midnight University the only legally-protected website in Thailand.Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)
Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) filed a petition against censorship before the NHRC on 15 November 2006. FACT's petition is still open for signatures and is actively seeking international support. Though NHRC has no enforcement capability and is therefore rarely able to extract evidence from government bodies, on 26 January 2007 MICT agreed to cooperate with the NHRC.On 9 February 2007, FACT filed an official information request with MICT under the Official Information Act of 1997. The request contains 20 questions and is signed by 257 individuals supported by 57 international civil liberties and human rights groups. The MICT refused to reply citing grounds of “national security” and “interference with law enforcement”; its secret blocklist, criteria used for censorship and specific procedures it uses remain private. On 23 March 2007, FACT filed a complaint requiring an investigation within 60 days by the Official Information Commission under the Prime Minister's Office. FACT stated that, should the complaint fail, it would seek a restraining order against further censorship through Thailand's legal system.
Circumvention software
Software applications for circumventing web-blocking are readily available. TorTor (anonymity network)
Tor is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Tor client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage from someone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis...
is in use through software including XeroBank Browser (formerly Torpark) and Vidalia
Vidalia project
Vidalia is a cross-platform controller GUI for Tor, built using the Qt. It allows the user to start, stop, and view the status of Tor; monitor bandwidth usage; view, filter, and search log messages; and configure some aspects of Tor...
, and a number of other proxied solutions including Proxify
Proxify
Proxify is a non-free, single-serving website that enable users to communicate more anonymously on the Internet. An example of this is to have Proxify use an SSH tunnel, already created and listening in on the localhost....
, Six-Four, phproxy are also used. Freenet
Freenet
Freenet is a decentralized, censorship-resistant distributed data store originally designed by Ian Clarke. According to Clarke, Freenet aims to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network with strong protection of anonymity; as part of supporting its users' freedom, Freenet is free and...
is another popular solution. Available for free download from the Internet, these packages are also published on disk by FACT. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister has said in an interview in the Bangkok Post
Bangkok Post
The Bangkok Post is a broadsheet, English-language daily newspaper published in Bangkok, Thailand. The first issue was sold on August 1, 1946. It had four pages and cost 1 baht, a considerable amount at the time....
that he has not blocked these methods because "using proxies to access illegal sites are illegal, whereas using proxies to access legal sites is legal."
External links
- "Website Censorship in Thailand – 2008-2011", Daily News and Views, 2Bangkok.com, 31 July 2010
- Wikileaks: Internet Censorship in Thailand, WikiLeaks, 18 November 2007; includes full block lists and a detailed analysis
- Global Integrity: Internet Censorship, A Comparative Study; puts Thai online censorship in cross-country context.