Internet Censorship in Thailand - History

History

Internet censorship is conducted by the Royal Thai Police, 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:

  • 60% pornography,
  • 14% sale of sex equipment,
  • 11% threats to national security, 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. 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:


Year		 Court
Orders		 Blocked
URLs
2007 1 2
2008 13 2071
2009 64 28,705
2010 39 43,908

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