How Thailand censors the Internet
31-05-07
The Thai Web-blocking situation is difficult to analyse with any precision for several reasons. The first is that the censors don’t seem to be tech wizards (in fact, few in government here even do email); they couldn’t figure out how to block a single video so instead blocked the entire YouTube domain. Still blocked, incidentally, even though the offending clip and some of its copycats have been removed.
There are several layers to Thai Web-blocking. The largest is the Royal Thai Police which, in November 2006, when they last published this data, were blocking 32,500 websites. The ICT Ministry did not block directly but circulated its daily blocklist to Thailand’s 54 ISPs to enforce.
These ISPs were understandably not terribly thrilled and enthusiastic about this extra onerous and useless make-work so they got around to blocking when they damned well felt like it. Thus, a website might be blocked by one ISP but, if you subscribed to another, the site would still be open. Large periods of NO censorship whatsoever often accompany long weekends.There was also some direct blocking of sites unspecified by Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) which, until recently, Thailand’s only Internet gateway. MICT has changed strategy at least partially, it would seem, to try to prevent the leaks which enable Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) to publishing their secret blocklists and post them internationally to Wikileaks and other free expression watchdogs.
MICT now no longer circulates their blocklist to ISPs but rely for enforcement on Thailand’s four Internet gateways: CAT, Telephone Organisation of Thailand (TOT), True Internet and Buddy Broadband, both private companies. And a new player will probably also be given a gateway licence soon. (This strategy did not improve MICT’s security: FACT continues to publish MICT’s current blocklist!)
An interesting recent case which has received less publicity than MICT’s YouTube block is the blocking of the Weblog, Saturday Voice. “Saturday” is mostly Thai secret code for Thaksin supporters but it is also used by anti-coup activists. <saturdayvoice> wears both those hats.
What is interesting is that it is hosted by Blogspot and, wielding their customary sledgehammer rather than scalpel, MICT has blocked the entire domain, tens or even hundreds of thousands of ordinary blogs on Blogspot and Blogger are now inaccessible in Thailand.
Two weeks ago, Thailand’s military-appointed assembly ratified a new cybercrime law by a vote of 119-1. This was, in fact, the first law passed by the coup governmentt. All its ‘crimes’ were already adequately enforced by existing Thai law. The law’s early drafts included the death penalty and life imprisonment but these were dropped to “only” 20 years in the final version.
Although the cybercrime law never refers to censorship, its provisions have been drafted in such a way as to criminalise everyday computer users. Computer users can now be charged for simply viewing any Website hosting content deemed to be “illegal, offensive or obscene” whether or not it has been blocked by government.
Use of circumvention software or anonymous proxies is considered to be “illegal instructions” (same legal weight as viruses, for example); concealing one’s IP address by these or other means carries penalties of two and four years.
Furthermore, all such “illegal content” which transits ISP servers, however momentarily or inadvertently, with or without the ISP’s knowledge or consent, prescribes even more severe criminal penalties.
Even though all Internet censorship is specifically illegal and unConstitutional in Thailand, the cybercrime law gives a big incentive to ISPs to self-censor so they don’t end up on the wrong side of the law. Soon we may not be able to figure out who exactly in censoring what in Thailand, a censorship free-for-all, except for Thai people.
FACT’s divulging of secret government documents and posting them internationally as well as posting of circumvention software and anonymous proxy information is, of course, in a similar legal situation.
FACT intends to continue to publish the means for the ordinary computer user in Thailand to free the Internet even when this becomes civil disobedience 30 days after Royal assent for the law. The Thai taxpayer pays five billion baht a year for MICT’s operations; the blocklist belongs to the people–we pay for it! Government’s original plan was to attach this new law to the new Constitution so that if you voted for the Constitution, you were also voting for the cybercrime law; luckily, they dropped that part!
03-06-07 at 9:05
[...] – Freedom Against Censorship Thailand has a post on the mechanism of internet censorship in Thailand. Share [...]
03-06-07 at 22:59
[...] great article on the FACT (Freedom Against Censorship Thailand) site here details the problems faced quite well. Posted in Censorship, [...]
17-06-07 at 23:08
I am in full support of your organisation. I have been running a company here for almost five years and I rely on the internet for a range of EDUCATIONAL books we publish in Thailand, Singapore and Australia. Key to our research has been sites such as Youtube and Google video. To block these sites in Thailand is absolutely appauling. What is even more suurprising is that although it made headlines for a few days, the fact that these sites are blocked now goes unnoticed.
If there is anyway that I may be able to assist your organisation, please let me know. We are an educational publishing and design company and I would be happy to allocate resources to help your cause should you see a need.
Regards
Matthew Cole
Managing Director
Interact Images Co. Ltd.
22-06-07 at 16:22
I run an ISP in the U.S. and noticed that my customers and I are no longer able to send email to a specific server in Thailand. I know that we are not blocking their server and their host says that they are not blocking mine. I also noticed that I cannot ping their server from other U.S. locations, networks and servers. So when I read this article, I naturally wondered if the government was blocking us without the knowledge of the ISP. Is there a way of confirming this or accessing the government’s blacklist?
Thank you
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