Internet censorship in Thailand
The years following the 2006 coup have seen a constant stream of sometimes violent protests, regional unrest,[1] emergency decrees,[2] a new cybercrimes law,[3] and an updated Internal Security Act.
[7] The national constitution provides for freedom of expression and press "as regulated by law"; but, the government imposes overwhelming limitations on these rights.
In 2014, it awarded Thailand an overall score of 62 ("not free") (0=best, 100=worst), citing substantial political censorship and the arrests of bloggers and other online users, ranking it 52 of 65 countries.
On 19 September 2006, the Thai military staged a bloodless coup d'état against the government of elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
[17] 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.
[18] 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.
CSOC pro-actively monitors websites and social media, and provides ISPs with a rapidly updated blocklist, including postings on Twitter and Facebook.
And Article 18(7) would allow authorities with a court order to compel service providers in assisting with the decryption of encoded data, undermining the use of encryption tools as a protection of user privacy.
Several technologies are employed to censor the Internet such as caching, blacklisting domain name or IP address, or simply redirection to a government homepage.
Thai ISPs appear to primarily be implementing censorship through DNS hijacking and through the use of middle boxes (HTTP transparent proxies) which serve block pages.
YouTube's parent company, Google, was reported to have agreed to assist MICT in blocking individual videos, thus making the remainder legal to display in Thailand.
The YouTube site block persisted for nearly five months, despite the fact that the video challenged by MICT was voluntarily deleted by the user who posted it.
[25] 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.
[28] 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.
[35] Following the 2014 Thai coup d'état, the junta, through MICT, instructed Internet providers in Thailand to block access to Facebook temporarily on 28 May 2014.
Despite claims of technical issues by the junta, the permanent secretary of MICT and Telenor, parent of Thai mobile phone operator dtac, later admitted that the blocks were done deliberately[36] The Facebook page "Royalist Marketplace" was launched as a forum by academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun to discuss and criticize the Thai monarchy freely.
[40] With vague laws, unknowing Facebook users face constant threat of violating the lèse majesté online by simply liking a post.
[42] 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.
[47] 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 in the prime minister's office.
The 2014 coup worsened the state of internet freedom when the junta began amending the 2007 Computer Crime Act to enable greater suppression and surveillance.
[49] In 2016 the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand hosted a panel discussion entitled Dealing with Computer Crime Archived 28 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine, summarizing: Thailand is in the midst of amending its Computer Crimes Act to enhance authorities' surveillance, and data suppression and removal powers.
This comes against the background of increased cyber crime and global terrorism, but also at a major transition for Thailand, whose military government is particularly alert to what it deems national security threats.
[53] In October 2020, Twitter took down a "low-intensity" Royal Thai Army information operation apparently designed to stifle and influence democratic opinion on social media regarding Army scandals and democratic processes in the country, as part of a major wider investigation by Facebook and Twitter into attempts to influence the 2020 US Presidential Election.
