Internet Censorship Thailand

Internet Censorship in Thailand

A study submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Management

at

THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

by

ISRIYA PAIREEPAIRIT

September 2008 1

Acknowledgements

For the Freedom of Speech

Many Thanks to Andrew Cox and C.J. Hinke

2

Abstract Background: This dissertation investigates the situation of internet censorship in Thailand which has been rising rapidly after 2006 Coup D’etat. Aims: The study explored Thailand’s unique social context on royal institution and Lèse majesté law, Thai government’s method and strategy to censoring the internet, and the perception of Thai general public on internet censorship they might ever face. Methods: The methods of gathering data are literature review, compilation of censorship timeline and online survey. It used qualitative approach to find how government censors the internet and what the citizen think about it. It had 38 respondents in total. Results: The situation of internet censorship in Thailand highly depends the political situation. The political crisis since 2005 till date, including the 2006 Coup D’etat, is the critical factor on the censorship. Thai government have used the combination of law, technical and Thailand’s unique social norm to censor the internet. The public opinions are diverse on the censorship topics but the majority of them questioned the accountability of the censorship process. Conclusion: The political situation and social perception of the royal institution played the key role to the internet censorship in Thailand. The way Thai government handled with the internet is the sign of internet as new disruptive technology to Thai society, as same as other country.

Word Count: 216

3

Table of Contents 1. Introduction...............................................................................................................7 1.1 Statement of Problem......................................................................................... 7 1.2 Aims and Objectives.......................................................................................... 8 1.3 Research Questions............................................................................................ 9 1.4 Motivation.......................................................................................................... 9 1.5 Dissertation Structure.......................................................................................10 2. Methodology........................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Methodological Strategies................................................................................11 2.2 Methods of Data Collection............................................................................. 11 2.2.1 Literature Review..................................................................................... 11 2.2.2 Timeline Compilation............................................................................... 12 2.2.3 Survey.......................................................................................................13 2.3 Method of Data Analysis..................................................................................13 2.4 Ethical Approval...............................................................................................14 2.5 Timetable of Study Overview.......................................................................... 15 3. Literature Review....................................................................................................16 3.1 Thailand’s Background.................................................................................... 16 3.1.1 Political History of Thailand.................................................................... 16 3.1.2 Perception on Royal Institution ............................................................... 17 3.1.3 Political Situation Since 2005.................................................................. 19 3.1.4 Cultural Background................................................................................ 22 3.1.5 Terrorist and Separatist............................................................................. 23 3.2 Internet in Thailand.......................................................................................... 24 3.2.1 History, Facts and Figures........................................................................ 24 3.2.2 Internet Regulators................................................................................... 25 3.2.3 Internet as Political Discussion Space...................................................... 26 3.3 Internet Censorship.......................................................................................... 29 3.3.1 Worldwide Internet Censorship Situation.................................................29 3.3.2 Lessig's Framework of Regulation........................................................... 30 4. Findings I: Internet Censorship Situation............................................................... 32

4

4.1 Topics of Censorship........................................................................................ 33 4.2 Internet Censorship Timeline........................................................................... 34 4.2.1 First Period (1999-2005).......................................................................... 34 4.2.2 Second Period (2005-19 September 2006)...............................................35 4.2.3 Third Period (19 September 2006-March 2007)......................................37 4.2.4 Fourth Period (March 2007-23 December 2007).....................................41 4.2.5 Fifth Period (23 December 2007-Present)................................................45 4.3 Block Lists Analysis.........................................................................................46 5. Findings II: Survey Results.....................................................................................48 5.1 Quantitative Survey Results............................................................................. 48 5.2 Qualitative Survey Results............................................................................... 49 5.2.1 The Effect of Internet Censorship............................................................ 49 5.2.2 The Method to Avoid Censorship............................................................. 50 5.2.3 The Opinions on Internet Censorship.......................................................51 5.2.4 The Awareness of the Computer Crime Act............................................. 57 5.2.5 The Future of Internet Censorship............................................................58 5.2.6 Additional Opinions on Internet Censorship............................................ 59 6. Discussions............................................................................................................. 62 6.1 The Opinions on Internet Censorship...............................................................62 6.2 The Topics of Censorship.................................................................................62 6.3 The Situation of Internet Censorship............................................................... 64 6.4 The Censorship Strategy.................................................................................. 64 7. Conclusion and Recommendations.........................................................................66 7.1 Recommendations on Further Research...........................................................68 8. Bibliography........................................................................................................... 69 9. Appendix................................................................................................................. 84 9.1 Glossary............................................................................................................84 9.2 Relevant Laws.................................................................................................. 88 9.2.1 CDR's Order Number 5............................................................................ 88 9.2.2 2007 Computer Crime Act........................................................................89 9.3 Survey Questions............................................................................................. 89 9.4 Images.............................................................................................................. 91

5

Illustration Index Illustration 1: Number of blocked sites by time..........................................................47 Illustration 2: Gender of participants.......................................................................... 48

Index of Tables Table 1: Number of blocked sites from leaked block lists..........................................47 Table 2: Age of participants........................................................................................ 48 Table 3: Degree of necessity of internet..................................................................... 49 Table 4: Opinion on Internet Censorship.................................................................... 52 Table 5: Topics of censorship......................................................................................53 Table 6: Method of censorship....................................................................................54 Table 7: Level of Internet Censorship in Thailand compared with other countries....57 Table 8: Opinion on 2007 Computer Crime Act......................................................... 58 Table 9: Opinion on Internet Censorship in the future...............................................59

6

1 Introduction 1.1 Statement of Problem Media censorship is not a new concept. Journalism and media have been struggled in power play game for ages. Governments around the world know that media controlling is essential strategy for staying in power. The story of banned books (Perlez, 2006; Warrick-Alexander, 2006), shutting down the press and sanctioning radio or television are very common in the modern history. Internet is different from other media. Internet has many attributes other media do not have. Internet links individual to individual rather than individual to station or editors in other media. The concept of coverage area is also changed. There is only one single Internet for people from every country. Broadcasting message within only national border can not be done on the Internet. That means Internet is less controlled or regulated than the traditional media. Since the throughput rate of internet is rising and the cost has been decline, more people are accessible to the internet. Somehow internet has become a threat for parties in power play games around the world. (Lessig, 2006, p. 38) Internet censorship has become more controversial issue in recent years. Governments try to control the Internet in the same way as the other kinds of media. But it is not easy since the Internet is different from traditional media in various aspects. (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2007) Thailand is one of countries that internet censorship situation is rising. (Reporters Without Borders, 2007a) As one of few countries that still has monarchy institution as the head of state, Thailand has its own believing system: the royal members are not criticizable. It also has the infamous Lèse majesté law, which has been used as political weapon throughout its rough 75 years of democracy. (Rojanaphruk, 2008) Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish royal-related issues from political dispute.

7

The Coup D'etat in 2006 brought back the royal and political debates and this time they were also introduced to cyberspace. The political crisis started in late-2005 extensively used the internet as main media to criticize and attack the government. After the military came out, the new interim government under military junta heavily censored and regulated the internet, in order to control the online movements of the opponent forces. Thai citizen was told that the censorship took place to protect the highly-respected royal family. (OpenNet Initiative, 2007) The most famous case is the blocking of YouTube in Thailand in April 2007 after an offensive video against the monarchy was discovered. (Fuller, 2007a) According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (2007), Thailand is now ranked tenth in the “Top 10 countries where press freedom has most deteriorated.”

1.2 Aims and Objectives There are previous studies on the Thailand censorship situation after the 2006 Coup D'etat but they mainly studies from the journalism viewpoint (Siriyuvasak, 2007) or the relationship between media and royal institution (Rojanaphruk, 2008). There are few studies on Thailand internet censorship but they are conducted by the western research units, which might have limited views on very complex situation in Thailand. (OpenNet Initiative, 2007) The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the internet censorship situation in Thailand in both social and technological aspect from the native viewpoint. The scope of the dissertation is online censorship in general but concentrating on political/royal issues, which are unique characteristic of Thailand. This study covers the motivation of censorship, statistical figures, public opinion for the censorship and the anti-censorship movement in the country.

8

1.3 Research Questions The research questions posed by this research include: 1. What is the characteristic of internet censorship in Thailand? What are the methods that government use? What are the reason they have told the public? 2. What is the perception on internet censorship from general public in Thailand? 3. What is the strategy of stakeholders (both people who were blocked and people who want to access the blocked web sites) in the censorship situation?

1.4 Motivation As one of Thai native who faced the latest Coup D'etat in the night of 19 September 2006, it was stunning and shocking experience. The last Coup D'etat in the country was dated back to 1991 and no one has thought it would happen again. In the night of the Coup, all television broadcasting and telecommunication stations (e.g. satellite relay) were seized by the military but the internet was still alive and untouched. It might be the Coup’s inexperience of the internet as the modern media. But not so long after the Coup, the interim government learned that the internet is their new threat and tried to control it as well as other traditional media. Thailand’s Press Freedom Index fell from 59th in 2004 (Reporters Without Borders, 2004) to 135th in 2007 due to “serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information.” (Reporters Without Borders, 2007a) Since the royal institution became the center of disputes, both in political and censorship-related debates, the opinions from general Thai public tend to fall into two categories: protecting the royal institution or freedom of speech. One of the motivation of this investigation was to study the perception of Thai public on internet censorship in the recent political turmoil period.

9

1.5 Dissertation Structure Chapter

Description

1. Introduction

This chapter gives a brief introduction to the research project, including the statement of problems, research questions and motivation.

2. Methodology

This chapter discusses on the methodology approach and the methods used to collect and analyse data.

3. Literature Review

This chapter reviews the background of internet censorship factors. It includes the historical background of Thailand: political, cultural and internet industry.

4. Findings I

This chapter reviews the extensive timeline of internet censorship in Thailand from past evidences.

5. Findings II

This chapter shows the results from the survey.

6. Discussions

This chapter discusses the relationship between findings and the literature review.

7. Conclusion and

This chapter summarises and concluded the

Recommendations

research’s findings and recommends the possible further research ideas.

8. Bibliography

An alphabetical list of literature used within this dissertation.

9. Appendices

The appendix chapter includes the survey questions, translations of related laws and glossary of terms.

10

2 Methodology This research follows previous dissertation on the similar topic from the year before (Rigsby, 2007) by choosing qualitative methodological approach for deeper interpretation of data. However, some parts also use quantitative approach altogether for better understanding. This section gives the explanation of qualitative research and the methods used to collect and analyse data.

2.1 Methodological Strategies There are two approaches of research strategy in general. Quantitative approach uses scientific model to test and evaluate a theory. In contrast, Qualitative approach constructs theory from the interpretation of social phenomenon. From the research questions in previous chapter, the first question is to investigate the government’s motivation and techniques on internet censorship from the context, evidences and documents available. The second question is to understand the perceptions of Thai general public on the complex situation made by political turmoil, social norms and technologies. The third question is how people deal with the censorship both from supported and opposed sides. All three questions are related to the context and perception, which are fit well with the qualitative approach.

2.2 Methods of Data Collection The research methods were highly influenced by Rigby’s work. Some methods followed the best practice from her work.

2.2.1 Literature Review The purpose of literature review is to study the background for the dispute censorship topics in Thailand and to study the base concepts/frameworks on internet censorship in general. While I am a Thai native who have well understanding on Thailand’s context, this research has been conducted on different environment; The University of Sheffield is 11

Western academic institution. Also, being Thai native can limit my perception, studying Thailand’s context from different point of view, especially from the people from other countries who live or used to live in Thailand, will be very useful in this research. For the literature review of the Thailand’s political, social and royal institution background, it is quite fortunate that there are many good resources available. The studies on Thailand’s social context in English language have been rising in the recent years, possibly due to the situations in the country. Many scholars from Southeast Asia Studies departments around the worlds produce reports, books, articles and journals and most of them are available online. The noteworthy resources are Paul Handley’s controversial The King Never Smiles (which is also banned in Thailand), the works by Duncan McCargo (professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds, specialising in Thailand), New Mandala (Web Blog from Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala) and Asia Sentinel news site (www.asiasentinel.com).

2.2.2 Timeline Compilation This part will gather evidences of internet censorship situation in Thailand from the very beginning. The evidences would be news reports from online media, blog posts, block lists and other relevant media. The strategy is to use English-language sources as much as possible for future references by non-Thai. From this criteria, two most popular English newspapers in Thailand: The Nation (nationmultimedia.com) and Bangkok Post (bangkokpost.net) are the main target. The difficulty was on Bangkok Post, which the older news were taken down from public access and the archive is only available for subscribers. The solution is to find the other sites that cited and quoted the news from Bangkok Post instead. Mainstream media such as BBC, International Herald Tribune and The Financial Times are three big newsagent publishing news on Thailand’s internet censorship. Online new media are also useful. Boing Boing (boingboing.net), one of the most 12

visited blogs in the world, has published many Thailand stories. Prachatai, Thailand online-only citizen newspaper has English section (www.prachatai.com/english) which is directly translated selected news from Thai section. Bangkok Pundit (bangkokpundit.blogspot.com) is anonymous blog on Thailand political situation in English. The last one is the Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT, facthai.wordpress.com), anti-censorship movement web site.

2.2.3 Survey Online survey was used to allow Thai internet users respond to the research questions. It was an attempt to gather opinions regarding how Thai public think about the internet censorship. The survey was conducted via email to a list of potential participants. However, it also encouraged participants to spread the survey to friends and colleagues, which some participants from the list did so. The survey consists of fourteen questions, both quantitative and qualitative. There are quantitative questions asking the participant information such as age or gender. All of qualitative questions on participant’s opinion are left open without choice in order not to limit the participant’s opinion. However, some examples were provided to give the participants some idea. This approach worked quite well because the participants gave a lot of different answers and aspects from initial examples. All questions are optional and can be omitted. The questions are in either Thai and English. Majority of participants preferred Thai question set and answered in Thai. The questions were sent by email from 13th July to August 5th. There are 38 responds in time. Few late submitted answers are not included in the analysing step. Each answer was anonymized by cutting the content text from email to text file without identifiable information. All text files were given identity number in random order to reduce bias and then translated into English before being processed. Each participant’s answers were marked as number 1-38.

2.3 Method of Data Analysis This study follows Rigby’s approach by using Grounded Theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1998 in Bryman, 2004: 401). Grounded Theory is a method to derive theory from data. It is the practice between data collection, analysis and theory to provide 13

evidence and support the findings. Grounded Theory was mainly used to analyse data from survey part. On the internet censorship issue, the Framework of Regulation (Lessig, 2006) was used. Lessig proposed four ‘regulators’ to any given context: law, market, social norms and architecture (or ‘code’ in Lessig’s word). In the internet world, Lessig argued that law is less effective and ‘code’ is the new way to regulate. Lessig’s concept was also discussed further in the work of Best and Wade (2005).

2.4 Ethical Approval While Thailand currently has political turmoil and the lèse majesté law, it is still the country with academic freedom. Whilst there are some banned and censored books or media on royal institution process, the academic conferences, both local and international, on humanities, social science and Southeast Asian Studies are organised periodically throughout the year. The proceedings from these conferences, also independent articles and reports, are published freely in journals, mass media magazines and web sites. The questions in the survey also asked participants about their personal belief (e.g. royal institution, religious, sexual issues). However, the research did not discussed directly on neither the king and royal institution nor political opinion. The participants were notice about the research aims and objectives. All identifiable data were removed before being process as stated above. The ethics approval forms was submitted to the University of Sheffield’s University Research Ethics Committee according to the University’s guideline.

14

31/08/08

24/08/08

17/08/08

10/08/08

03/08/08

27/07/08

20/07/08

13/07/08

06/08/08

29/06/08

22/06/08

15/06/08

08/06/08

01/01/08

2.5 Timetable of Study Overview

Literature review Questionnaire design Survey distribution Data analysis Write up/revision Hand in

15

3 Literature Review 3.1 Thailand’s Background 3.1.1 Political History of Thailand The current state of Thailand has begun since the founding of Ratthanakosin (Bangkok) era in 1782. King Rama I (Buddha Yodfa Chulalok) moved the capital to Bangkok and established Chakri dynasty. Until now, there are nine kings which the title Rama. The current king is Bhumibol Adulyadej or Rama IX, which descend the throne in 1956 after the death of his older brother, King Ananda Mahidol (Rama VIII). Now he is the world's longest-serving current head of state. Thailand survived the 19th century colonization from both British and French Empire by playing a power balance game between those two. The then King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), who is father of Rama VII and grandfather of Rama IX, also had the strong relationship with Russian monarch for power game. The next great threat from outside is World War II. Thailand was invaded by Japan force and the then prime minister Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram decided to join the Axis side. However, the Free Thai Movement participated in the Allied forces, mainly from U.S. and United Kingdom. After the war, U.S. prevented Thailand from being treated as an Axis country by the existence of the Free Thai Movement. Surviving from two great external treat, the continuity of Chakri dynasty is unusual from South East Asia neighbourhoods. As absolute monarchy since 1782, Thailand became democratized country in 1932. A group of military and civilian called “Khana Ratsadon” (literally translated as “People's Party”) committed a bloodless revolution and changed the country from absolute monarchy to democracy. However, Khana Ratsadon permitted the then king, Prajadhipok (Rama VII), to continue the throne but his power was limited by the constitution. He abdicated in 1935 after a dispute with Khana Ratsadon. His nephew, Ananda Mahidol, descended the throne in the same year as Rama VIII. 16

The political structure of Thailand is similar to United Kingdom and other constitutional monarchy countries. The monarch is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. The parliament consists of a House of Representatives and a House of Senate. Since 1932 revolution, Thailand has 25 prime ministers. The current prime minister at the time of writing is Samak Sundaravej. (The Secretariat of the Cabinet, 2008) As developing country, Thailand has faced many political instabilities since 1932 revolution. There are 12 successful military coups and 18 charters and constitutions. (Wikipedia, n.d.b) All of charters and constitutions have allowed the constitutional monarchy.

3.1.2 Perception on Royal Institution One unique characteristic of Thailand political background is the status of monarch. Thailand is one of few countries in the world that lèse majesté law is still in effect. (Jackson P., 2007) Even though the King Bhumibol Adulyadej clearly stated by himself several times in his birthday speeches that he would not take lèse majesté charges seriously, lèse majesté has been used as political accusation numerous times throughout the history. Most of military juntas cited lèse majesté or protection of the throne as one of their coup reasons. The latest coups happened on 19 September 2006 by the Royal Thai Army against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra followed this path. Lèse majesté accusation is also used. Lèse majesté law has prevented the critics of the king and royal member in general public. Then the tone of monarch stories in the media is only positive. 2006 was also the Diamond Jubilee year of King Bhumipol Adulyadej's coronation, a series of events took place throughout the year. (Wikipedia, n.d.a) This makes the royal supports and praises reach theirs peak spot. On the other side, Kevin Hewison, the Director of Carolina Asia Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, thought they are too much and called them as “propaganda” in his report to the UNDP. (Walker, 2007) One of good writings on mainstream media's self-censorship for lèse majesté topics 17

is the work by Pravit Rojanaphruk (2008), a veteran journalist of The Nation, daily english newspaper. As a journalist, he has a good understanding of newspaper's selfcensorship process. He describes newspaper editors as “the gate keeper who decides that to print or not. The issue of the monarchy institution requires them to exercise their authority carefully to protect the security of their career and their organisations.” (Rojanaphruk, 2008) Different editors of different newspapers have to decide by themselves where is the border of self-censorship. In the case of a Swiss man who got drunk and spray painted five images of the king, some of Thai newspaper prefer not to report this news initially. Most of the newspaper pick up from international news agencies like AP or AFP in an apparent attempt to play it safe. The journalist side is quite the same. Most journalists think it is unnecessary to express their views on royal institution publicly, which can cause them career trouble. The market pressure is another reason on media's self censorship. Pravit cites one newspaper editor's quote: “Ours is a [media] corporation listed on the stock exchange market. If something goes wrong we would have to take responsibility.” Advertising revenues from messages praising the king and other royal family members posted by various corporations and organisations on the numerous auspicious days such as the king's birthday are not negligible part of newspaper's income. Some newspapers even went further by publishing a full-colour special edition on royal celebrations for sale. Pravit claims that lèse majesté law not only prevent the critics over the monarchy institution in the mass media but also “influenced the public into having an even more romantic and one-dimension view towards the institution and celebrate the institution even further.” He calls this phenomenon as “the upward spiral effect”. (Rojanaphruk, 2008) The upward spiral effect and self-censorship made the relevant issues that should be discussed and debated openly by the public move to private space or some internet web sites instead. Such issues include the future of royal succession, the role of Thai monarchy and politics, banned books critical to institution, and the accountability of the Crown Property Bureau. (Prachatai, 2007)

18

For the ban of books, one of the most well-known case is the ban of “The King Never Smiles.” The King Never Smiles, known in abbreviation as TKNS, is an unauthorized biography of King Bhumibol Adulyadej by Paul M. Handley, a freelance journalist who lived and worked in Thailand as foreign correspondent. It is published by Yale University Press in 2006. The New York Times noted that the book “presents a direct counterpoint to years of methodical royal image-making that projects a king beyond politics, a man of peace, good works and Buddhist humility.” The book was banned in Thailand before its release. There was a report that Thai officials had contacted the Yale University president, Richard Levin, and even had sought the help of former President George H. W. Bush, an alumnus of Yale. (Perlez, 2006) In February 2007, the Chula Book Centre, the main bookstore of state-run Chulalongkorn University, removed Chulalongkorn University professor Giles Ungphakorn's 2007 book “A Coup for the Rich” from its shelves after a manager of the book store found that it listed The King Never Smiles as a reference. (Prachatai, 2007)

3.1.3 Political Situation Since 2005 After a landslide winning in January 2005 legislative election, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai government faced multiple crises within that year. Sondhi Limthongkul, a media tycoon who own the Manager newspaper has been the leading figure of anti-Thaksin movement. It started from a dispute between Sondhi's new TV channel and business issues and government regulation. After his program was withdrawn from government own TV channel in mid 2005, Sondhi became a major Thaksin critics via his own satellite cable TV and Manager.co.th web site. The allegations against Thaksin include lèse majesté, corruption, conflict of interest between Thaksin's Shin Corporation, Thailand's leading mobile carrier and telecommunication corporation, and government policy. The general public's attention was limited at first but after Thaksin's family sold their all stake in Shin Corporation to Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings in January 2006 with tax exemption. The deal was worth 1.88 billion US dollar. (Pongsudhirak, 2006) Although the deal was clearly legal with the Stock Exchange 19

of Thailand's regulation, many people felt it was not right in term of morality and joined the protest with Sondhi's movement. Sondhi formed People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement and the demonstration led to Thaksin's decision to parliament dissolution in February 2006. The demonstration had still continued and there were demand for royal intervention from People's Alliance for Democracy and the opposition party leader. However, the king himself said in April 2006 speech that “Asking for a Royally appointed prime minister is undemocratic. It is, pardon me, a mess. It is irrational.” (The Nation, 2006a) Major political parties boycotted the April 2006 legislative election so only Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party and several small parties took part. The practical choices for eligible voters are either voting for Thai Rak Thai or abstention. Thaksin claimed that Thai Rak Thai won 16 million votes versus 10 million abstentions. He also stated that he would not accept the post of Prime Minister to avoid conflict and the new candidate would be chosen from Thai Rak Thai party. (Channelnewsasia, 2006) However, in April 2006 televised speech, King Bhumibol requested that the judiciary take action to resolve the political crisis. (The Parliament of Thailand, 2006) The Constitution Court invalidated the results of April legislative elections and ordered a new round of elections in October 2006. The Criminal Court jailed the pro-Thaksin Election Commissioners which resulted as removing them from their post by Constitution. (BBC, 2006) Thaksin returned to his caretaker Prime Minister until the new election took place. The demonstration had still continued. On the night of 19 September 2006, while Thaksin was attending a meeting at United Nations in New York City, a force from Royal Thai Army led by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, then Commander-in-Chief of the Army, staged a successful, bloodless, coup d'état against Thaksin government. Sonthi, who formed Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy (CDR) as military regime, accused Thaksin's government for multiple reasons. They include the disunity of Thai citizen, corruption and lèse majesté. (The Nation, 2006d) The new interim Constitution was used on 27 September 2006. (The 20

Nation, 2006c) and Sonthi told foreign diplomats that a new national election would take place in a year's time. That would imply that October 2006 elections would not take place as scheduled. Thailand 2006 interim civilian government was appointed on 1 October 2006 by the Council of National Security, a new name of Council for Democratic Reform. The Prime Minister was General Surayud Chulanont, who was former Commander-inChief of Royal Thai Army before General Sonthi and then one of Privy Councilor to the King. Thaksin was in exile from the country. After the day of coup, he flew from New York to his resident in London. He also traveled to temporarily stay with his businessmen friends in several countries, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore and United Arab Emirates. His wife and some children still stayed in Thailand. Thaksin's first interview after coup was conducted by CNN in January 2007. (CNN, 2007) The Council for Democratic Reform influenced the dissolution of Thai Rak Thai Party in May 2007. The 111 executive members of Thai Rak Thai Party, including Thaksin, were banned from participating in politics for five-year period. The former non-executive politicians from Thai Rak Thai Party moved to a newly formed People's Power Party (PPP) which led by experienced politician Samak Sundaravej. Surayud's interim government organized a referendum for new 2007 permanent Constitution of Thailand in August 2007. The referendum was accepted by 57.8% of voters. (Janssen, 2007) After that, Surayud's government held the new general elections on 23 December 2007, which brought the country back to democracy. People's Power Party got 233 seats of total 480 seats. It then formed a coalition government with other five smaller parties which had 315 seats in total. Samak Sundaravej became the new Prime Minister and his new cabinet was endorsed by the king in February 2008. The political situation is still unstable. With the rise of Thaksin's nominee People's Power Party, Sondhi Limthongkul and his People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) relaunched the campaign against Samak's government. In May 2008, PAD has seized 21

the street of inner Bangkok for long term demonstratation. (Daily Xpress, 2008) On the other side, after his supporters won the December 2007 elections, Thaksin returned to Thailand in February 2008 after 17 months in exile. (BBC, 2008) Thaksin's trial on corruption has been going on by the court. After his wife was sentenced guilty in the first of several cases, he and his family went back to London and seek for asylum in August 2008. (The Globe and Mail, 2008) It was speculated widely that the mastermind of 2006 coup is General Prem Tinsulanonda, former Prime Minister and the chief of Privy Council to the king. Thaksin himself implied Prem's role in several interviews, mentioned “The Invisible Hand” wanted to oust him. (Kate, 2008) In March 2007, Thai Rak Thai's supporters a signature campaign to petition the king to remove Prem from the monarch’s advisory body (Kate, 2007a) and demonstrated to protest at Prem's resident in July 2007. (Kate, 2007b) Beyond Prem, there are speculations outside Thailand that the king had advance knowledge of the coup, or even he had executive control over it, although there was no direct evidence. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University, said “The role of the king was critical in this crisis. He is widely seen as having implicitly endorsed the coup.” (McGeown, 2006) However, the lèse majesté law prevents this kind of discussion from most of Thai scholars and mainstream media. Then the discussion moved to the internet and became the main dispute of internet censorship in Thailand.

3.1.4 Cultural Background While Buddhism is not the official religion, 95% of Thailand's population is Theravada Buddhist. (the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2007) Buddhism has become integrated with folk beliefs and the way of life in the country. Buddhist temples can be found in every town. Buddhist praying is included in the process of many official ceremonies. Majority of Thai believes in Buddhism’s theory of Karma and avoids killing, gambling, lying and stealing because of this belief. The Buddha image is the figure of holy and must be respected. Thai can not sit in the same level of Buddha images or monks, must be lower in any situation. One of the common stories on newspaper is the misuse of misplace of Buddha image in western 22

countries (i.e. use as interior decoration) and always ends up with protest from Thai people or Thai officials. Thai women have grown up with the norm of strict dressing. Revealing cloth is not acceptable for government buildings or meeting with elders. However, the globalization has rendered this norm in more relax way among teens and young generations. Pornography and prostitution are definitely illegal. Unlike the western world, child pornography is treated as same as normal pornography, no special emphasis in term of both legal and perception. Most kinds of gambling are illegal, except government lottery, horse racing, and Thai boxing. However, Illegal lottery and European football betting are common things in local community. There is no legitimate casino in Thailand but in practice, private casino is not hard to find. Some Thai prefer to travel cross Cambodian border for casino on weekend or even go further to Macau. There were several attempts from various government to establish a casino in Thailand but always got protest from the conservatives every time. (Bangkokrecorder, 2004)

3.1.5 Terrorist and Separatist Thailand has few racism problems compared to other countries. The law provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respected this right in practice. Unregistered religious organizations operate freely, and the Government's practice of not recognizing any new religious groups does not restrict the activities of unregistered religious groups. There were no reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious belief or practice (the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2007) However, in the far southern part of Thailand, the separatist movement has been rising since 2001. Patani region, or “Patani Raya”, consists of the province of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and parts of Songkhla, is the main area of conflict. Historically, Patani was independent Islamic state with Malay ethics but was conquered several times by ancient Thailand kingdom. A separatist movement has sought the establishment of a Malay and Islamic state called Patani Darussalam. The separatist history can be traced back to 1968, the year that Patani United Liberation 23

Organization (PULO) was founded. There have been suggestions of links between PULO and foreign Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah. (Liow, 2004) The separatist began to use violent tactics in 2001. Martial law was used in Patani region in January 2004. (BBC, 2005) Since then till June 2007, more than 2,300 people have been killed. (The International Herald Tribune, 2007) The insurgency has still continued at the time of writing as August 2008. The only terrorist incident in post-2000 era which is not related to Southern insurgency is 2006 Bangkok bombings. It occurred on the New Year's Eve of 2007 (The night of 31 December 2006). Eight explosions were reported during the night. Three people were dead and 38 people injured. While there is nobody claimed responsibility for the bombing, the then Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont pointed the finger at "all those which have lost power in the past". (BBC, 2007)

3.2 Internet in Thailand 3.2.1 History, Facts and Figures The first evidence of Internet in Thailand was the test connections from Computer Science Department, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) to University of Melbourne and University of Tokyo in mid-1987. In 1990, the Australian International Development Plan (IDP) assisted Prince of Songkhla University in the south of Thailand in setting up dial-up email connectivity to University of Melbourne. In 1992, Chulalongkorn University was the first university in Thailand that acquired the first 9.6 Kbps leased line to UUNET network. (Palasri et al., 1999) Internet Thailand Service Center, later known as Internet Thailand, the first commercial Internet Service Provider in Thailand was established in March 1995. Only a few months later, the second ISP, KSC Comnet, was established. (Koanantakool, 2007a) Internet users in Thailand has increased from 30 in 1991 to 13,416,000 in 2007. At 5 August 2008, the number of internet bandwidth is 30 Mbps (international) and 226 Mbps (domestic). (NECTEC, 2008) The average growth of internet bandwidth between 2005-2007 is about 45%. Thailand is ranked tenth in Asia in terms of the IP 24

number, which is 17,198,848 (Koanantakool, 2007b) According to NECTEC data, there are total 35,757 .th domain names as June 2008. It should be noted that most of Thai web sites are registered in .com instead of .co.th. The most popular web site in Thailand is www.sanook.com, a web portal site. Four in top five web sites are portal or teens entertainment site. The most popular internet forum (known in Thailand as “webboard”) is Pantip.com, one of first web sites established in Thailand when the internet was being introduced in the country. Pantip.com has always been in top ten web sites tracked by government agency Truehits. (Truehits.net, 2008) The top three search keywords are “games”, “horoscope”, and “song”. 50.33% of all tracked web sites by Truehits are in Entertainment and Games category. The access to government web sites is very low (1.75%) and even worse for educational contents (1.71%). Most visitors of Thailand web sites are domestic. The top foreign countries are USA and Japan. (Koanantakool, 2007b)

3.2.2 Internet Regulators At the beginning, telecommunication in Thailand was under controlled by the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT), a government corporation. Internet Service Providers (ISP) need to apply for concession from CAT. There are 20 ISPs which have contract with CAT. (CAT Telecom, 2008). After the establishment of The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) by the 1997 Constitution, CAT was diminished its regulator role to become solely telecommunication operator. It was corporatized in 2003 as CAT Telecom Public Company Limited. CAT Telecom still maintains the status of state-owned enterprise since 100 percent stake of its share capital held by the Ministry of Finance. It reports directly to the Minister of ICT. (CAT Telecom, 2005) The NTC came with the new and modern model of licensing. Telecommunication company after the establishment of NTC, need to apply for license from NTC instead of concession. There are three types of Telecommunications Business Licensing: (The National Telecommunications Commission, 2006)

25

1. Type One License is granted to the operators not having their own network 2. Type Two License can be granted to either the operators having or not having their own network. It is mainly intended for a limited group of people, or services with no significant impacts on free and fair competition or on public interest and consumers. 3. Type Three License is granted to the operators having their own network. It is intended for general public, or services which may cause a significant impact on free fair competition or on public interest, or a service which requires special consumer protection. As August 2008, there are 75 licensees for Internet Service Provider. 73 of them are Type One and the remaining two are Type Three. There are 11 licensees which are granted for Type Two (International Gateway or Domestic Data Exchange) license. (The National Telecommunications Commission, 2008) From NECTEC data, there are six International Gateways and seven domestic National Internet Exchanges in operation. Many small and medium size ISPs primarily connect to CAT's gateway and domestic exchange. (Roongroj, 2008). The former 20 ISPs from CAT era had the option to retain their concession till expired or switch to NTC licensing model. Some chose to switch which depend on the business condition in the contract. The establishment of Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) in 2002 is the consolidation of ICT policy in Thailand. Ministry of ICT is the administrator of CAT Telecom and other government-owned telecommunication operator called TOT (formerly Telephone Organization of Thailand). While the NTC is independent, it works closely with Ministry of ICT. In summary, theoretically internet in Thailand is controlled and regulated by the NTC. But in practice, CAT still has key role in internet industry due to its size, channels and former influence. Ministry of ICT has a full control over CAT and TOT.

3.2.3 Internet as Political Discussion Space The first and probably most important political discussion space in Thailand is 26

internet forum. Pitch Pongsawat (2002), a political science scholar at Chulalongkorn University, studied the characteristic of internet forum as political discussion space, “Virtual Democracy” in 1992-2001 period. The first and largest internet discussion site in Thailand is Pantip.com. Pantip.com was founded in 1997 by Wanchat Padongrat. The name of the web site was borrowed from Pantip Plaza, the largest computer retail complex in Bangkok, Thailand. It was originally set up as a magazine-like web site, with an emphasis on the classified section as a major source of income. The content of the "magazine" was originally divided into two major departments: Information Technology and the non-IT. Later on the site started to introduce new community portals, or "cafes/tables/ communities" covering such topics as automobiles, fine arts, politics and libraries. The most popular cafes in Pantip.com are Rajadamnern (politics) and Chalermthai (entertainment). Mainly by its users, Rajadamnern has developed its reputation of quality and variety of discussion. Opinion expressed on Pantip.com are often quoted by the mainstream press. Some newspapers even started a daily column summarizing the online debate from Pantip.com and other online communities. Pitch argues that political internet forum, especially in Pantip.com case, is one example of the “freedom of speech in practiced” in Thailand. However, he also question several problems of political forum: the anonymity of posters, self-censorship on sensitive topics, silent majority, and the representation of only urban middle class. (Pongsawat, 2002) The Virtual Democracy in political internet forum after Pitch's study was challenged by three factors: blogging, internet video, and 2006 coup d'état. Blog can be considered as complement for internet forum. Same as other countries, Thailand was affected by the world wide boom of blogging in post-2000 era. Thai internet users prefer domestic blogging services over international providers like Bloggers or LiveJournal. The most popular blogging service in Thailand is Exteen.com, which aims for teens. Pantip.com also launched its own blogging service called Bloggang, which now is not far behind Exteen in term of traffic. (Truehits.net, 2008) OKNation, a blogging service from Nation Multimedia Group, one of 27

Thailand's largest media conglomerates and the owner of The Nation newspaper, mainly aims for “citizen journalist” type of bloggers. Many renown Thai bloggers host their blogs on their own server or leased hosting. The integration between main portal site and blogging service is interesting. In Bloggang case, bloggers are existing Pantip.com members who usually participate in forum and already have some numbers of fan base. The commenting or cross discussion between blogs are mostly developed from former forum relationship. In OKNation case, its tag line can be translated as “Everyone can be reporter.” OKNation's bloggers discuss or report news on their blog in purpose of being published or mentioned by one of Nation's publications. (OKNation, 2008) Internet video is another aspect. It transformed Thailand's internet industry from textual-based into full multimedia. Since Thailand's television broadcasting is highly regulated by the state, online video quickly fulfilled this gap. The PAD movement efficiently used internet streaming video as its broadcasting system to gain supports from urban middle class in workplace. The pro-Thaksin movement also followed this tactic with video and radio streaming. YouTube and other online video services (i.e. Metacafe) are another battleground of political supporters. Politician's speech clips from TV news report have been posted to counter-claim the opposite side. There are even the propaganda clips against royal monarch, which led to the ban of YouTube in Thailand in 2007. (Wong-Anan, 2007) The biggest factor might be political crisis started in 2005. At the start of PAD's antiThaksin campaign in mid-2005, Sondhi Limthongkul's Manager group used Manager.co.th, its online counterpart, as the center of political news source against Thaksin's government. Manager.co.th was a breakthrough of online news report in Thailand. It beat other newspaper sites in term of quality, recency, and variety. It became urban middle class's first choice for news consuming at workplace. Now Manager.co.th rank fourth in Thailand top 100 web sites. (Truehits.net, 2008) The 2006 coup d'état was another big leap for the virtual democracy in Thailand. Internet is only one of few communication channels that were not controlled by the military junta at the night of coup. The reaction of coup d'état appeared almost 28

immediately after the night of 19 September 2006. Several protest web sites were online in the day of 20 September 2006. The number of discussions on internet forum is huge, especially on Pantip.com's Rajadamnern forum. With the initial public's flavour to the coup, some anti-military movement migrated from Rajadamnern to found their own fully-controlled web site. These web sites include 19sep.net and saturdayvoice.com. (The Nation, 2006b) However, the biggest issues might not be which web site for political discussion but the topics of discussion. Since there were some speculation for the royal involvement to 2006 coup, the straightforward critics and discussions to royal institution, which is the first topic that Thai people want to avoid in public, have appeared in anti-coup web sites. (Rojanaphruk, 2008)

3.3 Internet Censorship 3.3.1 Worldwide Internet Censorship Situation Internet gradually gains influence in social and cultural impact. Many organisations, both government and private, that feel lost of control or power by the internet, have tried to regulate the behavior of internet citizens in various ways. The most famous topic on internet regulation is about politics. The open and distributed nature of internet enables citizen to critic, discuss and express their political views which are not possible in traditional media. Best & Wade (2005) find the relationship between internet penetration rate and the degree of democracy in that particular country. Many governments view this phenomenon as threat and try to suppress it. The governments’ attempt to control and regulate internet stands out in more surveillance countries e.g. China, Vietnam and Singapore (Gomez, 2004). Some possible internet regulation on political topics are about election situation (Singapore) and terrorists (Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistani, India). Deibert et al. (2008) show the example of Tunisia government’s censorship on NGO movement against World Summit on the Information Society 2005 in Tunisia. The next topic on internet regulation is pornography and gambling. While governments around the world are quite agree in fundamental against internet pornography, some countries in Scandinavia are more strict for child pornography (Deibert et al., 2008). The related issue is culture, which is different between region 29

and country background. Iran prohibits the discussion on religion (Rigby, 2007) while France and Germany block every imagery related to Nazism and Holocaust (Deibert et al., 2008). For non-government effort to control the internet content, Zittrain (2003) suggests the lawsuit against piracy and intellectual property in United States. Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) are two most prolific private organizations that try to take down illegal content. The situation of internet censorship from the government side has worsen in recent years, probably after 9/11 (Gomez, 2004). Deibert et al. (2008) state that there are more than ‘three dozen’ countries which censor the internet. The state-mandated filtering are clustered in three regions of the world: East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Central Asia. Reporter Without Borders (2006) listed ‘the 13 internet enemies’, countries which the internet censorship is severe. This list includes Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

3.3.2 Lessig's Framework of Regulation The methods of regulation are combination of various tools. Using Lawrence Lessig's (2006) general framework of regulation, there are four forces that regulate or constrain any given industry: law, markets, social norms and architecture (or ‘code’). Best and Wade (2005) apply this framework to internet censorship and classify each regulators: 1. Law – Computer Crime laws forbid freedom of speech on the internet. 2. Markets – some countries e.g. Burma set very high price for internet access to prevent internet penetration from mass market (Gomez, 2004). 3. Social norms – self-censorship. Some governments raise fears for general public to avoid discussion on sensitive issues. Although the subject is variable by country, the effect is same to filter-based censorship. 4. Architecture – in this meaning, the technical constrain. Filtering software (i.e. Firewall) or block lists are considered in this category.

30

From Best and Wade (2005), the market force can only be used in controlled economics, which means it is useless in most countries. There were evidences suggesting China and Burma have used high internet access price as ‘regulator’. The main strategy of governments around the world is using state laws in combination with filtering software. One of the most famous ‘architecture’ on internet censorship in China's Great Firewall. (Watts, 2008) From Rigby (2007), Iran is the country that effectively uses law for internet regulation. The other countries in Best and Wade's work are Malaysia, Turkey and China, which have criminalized politically dissident online speech. Using strict laws to control the internet also has indirect but efficient benefit: selfcensorship (or Socially normative regulator in Lessig’s word). Best and Wade argue that “individual self-censorship has similar democratic effects to filter-based censorship.” Self-censorship on the Internet is apparent in a number of authoritarian nations, including Burma, China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

31

4 Findings I: Internet Censorship Situation This chapter captures the whole censorship timeline from available evidences: media, blogs, block lists. The purpose is to analyse the characteristic of internet censorship in Thailand from the first research question. It also tries to answer the first part of third research question: what is the strategy of the people who censor the internet. There are some existing compilations or reports on Thailand internet censorship situation: 1. The outstanding works are the works by Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) movement. FACT's main web site is facthai.wordpress.com as a blog. FACT's works also appear in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Thailand) and WikiLeaks (http://wikileaks.org/ wiki/Internet_Censorship_in_Thailand). 2. The most comprehensive timeline is 2Bangkok.com “Website censorship in Thailand” (http://2bangkok.com/blocked.shtml) which is dated since 2002. The same team also produced a country report in the name of 2B Research and Analysis (http://www.angkor.com/2braa/index.shtml) 3. On the western side OpenNet Initiative (opennet.net), a joint project from Harvard, Toronto, Cambridge, and Oxford, also investigated and reported the censorship overview of Thailand. The other is from Reporters Without Borders, a NGO effort. 4. The works from Thai scholars concentrate on the censorship in the view of media and freedom of speech. Two notable works are from Ubonrat Siriyuvasak (2007) and Pirongrong Ramasoota Rananand (2005), both are lecturers at Faculty of Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.

32

4.1 Topics of Censorship From the evidences, there are 9 categories of web site or content that have been blocked in Thailand. The details of each particular site are discussed in the next section. 1. Pornography – Pornography is illegal in Thailand. Child pornography is threat as same as adult pornography. The high profile international porn sites like Playboy.com are filtered. The outstanding case is the blocking of Japanese porn VCD/DVD selling sites by Thai merchants. 2. Royal Institution - Lèse majesté law prohibits the discussions and critics against Thai monarch and royal members. Most of web sites discussing on royal institution are hosted outside the country to avoid the effect from lèse majesté law. The government then blocks the access to these web sites from within the country. The most international well known cases are YouTube incident and Yale University Press web site. Content hosting services like Blogspot, Geocities, Google Pages and WordPress.com were occasionally blocked for the accusation of hosting lèse majesté content. 3. Politics – The political situation in Thailand since 2005 till the time of writing has caused the censorship against political opponents. The targets are depended on which side is staying in the power but the characteristic is the same: blocking the political enemies by citing the lèse majesté law or national security. International news sites like CNN was occasionally blocked due to the political situation. 4. Gambling – Most kinds of gambling are illegal in Thailand. The police has permission to seize servers of gambling sites using criminal law. For the sites that are hosted outside the country. Filtering technics have been used. 5. Religion – The only dispute religion is Buddhism. The most common types are the foreign merchant sites selling Buddha images or the inappropriate use of Buddha head. This kind of web sites has unique characteristic: government and public tend to protest or complain rather than censor. 6. Terrorists and Separatists – This kind of web sites is low profile in censoring but the insurgency of southern part of Thailand has increased the awareness of censorship to the related sites. 7. Online Gaming – The rise of online games, especially Ragnarok Online 33

(www.ragnarokonline.com) from South Korea, raised the concern of video game addiction from parent networks to the government. The result was the curfew of youth players for late night gaming. 8. Proxy and Anonymity Software - After the YouTube incident in 2006, many well known free proxy services and web sites were also banned. The related anonymity software, for example: Tor, was also banned to prevent the access to filtered sites. 9. Unknown/Accidental – Some blocked sites had no obvious reason given. It is very likely to be wrong or accidental blocking. Web sites in this category are tech report Mashable.com and 2Bangkok.com.

4.2 Internet Censorship Timeline From the evidences of internet censorship from both reports and media, a full timeline of Internet Censorship in Thailand from 1999 till 20008 can be compiled as below. I also divide the timeline into five periods. The criteria are the changes of characteristic between each period, mainly by the topics of censorship.

4.2.1 First Period (1999-2005) The very first evidence of internet censorship in Thailand is the request for shutting down of pulo.org, the web site of Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO), a separatist movement in the southern part of Thailand, from Thai police to US-based web host in 1999. It led to the order of blocking pulo.org to Thai ISP in November 2002. The police also sent letters to Thai ISPs to shut down web sites that contained fake nude image of Thai actresses. (Privacy International, 2003) This period lasts until the beginning of political protest against Thai Rak Thai government in late 2005. The characteristic of this period is everything except politics. The popularity of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), especially Ragnarok Online from South Korea, raised the parental concern on youth's video game addiction. In March 2003, Surapong Suebwonglee, the then Minister of ICT, passed the new regulatory measures for online game. Users must provide 13digit ID registration to be eligible for game playing, in order to keep track on player profile and age. Internet cafes were asked to stop young children in school uniform for playing games during school hours and to bar those under 18 from playing from 34

10pm to 6am. Outraged gamers sent online protests to Ministry of ICT’s website and Ragnarok webboards, threatening an impeachment appeal on ICT minister in July 2003. The unlimited access to Ragnarok granted to over-18 players once they submit their ID cards and register with Ministry of ICT, starting on 1 October. (Rananand, 2005) In 2002, Royal Thai Police set up an online reporting method which citizens can report obscene or defamatory sites. 7,700 sites were reported in its first year, almost 70% for pornography, 5% for child pornography and 7% for national security. Since July 2003 over 100 sites have been blocked by Thai ISPs. Ministry of ICT made agreement with ISPs that the ISP’s licences could be at risk if the block was not implemented. (Privacy International, 2003) These 100 sites are “violent and pornographic” sites. (2Bangkok.com, 2008b) The January 2004 block list, published by anti-censorship movement group FACT (Freedom Against Censorship Thailand) and claimed that it is Ministry of ICT's list, reveals that 1,247 sites in the list. (FACT, 2006d) According to Department of Special Investigation (DSI), Ministry of Justice, document, 24 March 2004 is the first mentioned date of manusaya.com, first known anti-royal site. DSI's investigation found that manusaya.com was hosted by Canadian Netfirms hosting and there were link between manusaya.com and separatist movement based in Sweden. Netfirms shutdown manusaya.com in June 2005 by DSI's request. (Department of Special Investigation, 2006) Before shutdown, Royal Thai Police blocked the access to manusaya.com on 14 July 2004. (Vamvanij, 2006) Blockage of Geocities was reported in July-October 2004. (Thaiall.com, 2007) The main responsible organizations for internet crime and censorship are Royal Thai Police (directly report to Prime Minister) and Department of Special Investigation, Ministry of Justice (counterpart of USA's FBI).

4.2.2 Second Period (2005-19 September 2006) The tide against Thai Rak Thai government has begun in mid 2005. It brought a new dispute to Thailand’s internet censorship: politics. The first two web sites are 35

www.thai-insider.com and www.fm9225.com in June 2005. Thai-insider.com is owned by Ekkayuth Anchanbutr. Ekkayuth is Thai businessman who operated pyramid scheme investment in 1983 and fled to United Kingdom in 1984 to avoid charges. After 20 years statute of limitations was exhausted in 2004, he went back to Thailand and launched an anti-corruption campaign against Thaksin Shinawatra via his thai-insider.com web site. The web site is still updated at the time of writing in August 2008. FM92.95 is a community radio that aslo broadcasted streaming program via its web site. The program, “Thailand Review”, criticise Thaksin Shinawatra. Ministry of ICT issued an order to shut down both sites on 18 June 2005. The reasons given were “allegedly threatening national security and disturbing public order.” FM92.95 moved to another ISPs twice and completely shut down in 23 June. Thai media organizations and members of the Democrat opposition party have condemned the government's actions. (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2005) In January 2006, another anti-graft web site corruptionwatch.net was pulled plug off by its ISP, Naptec Co. When the webmaster asked Naptec the reason, it said it “did it out of fear.” Corruptionwatch.net was founded on 9 January 2006 by Alongkorn Pollabutr. Alongkorn is the member of parliament from opposition Democrat Party. (Pinijparakarn, 2006) On 15 March 2006, Supinya Klangnarong, secretary general of the Campaign for Popular Media Reform, who criticised Thaksin's Shin Corporation on the US$1.88 billion deal between Thaksin's family and Singapore's Temasek Holdings on Thai Post newspaper and web site, won the case filed by Shin Corporation in Criminal Court. In the lawsuit, Shin Corporation wanted her to apologize for her words. Thai media praised the court to allow the freedom of speech. (Bangkok Pundit, 2006) While Sondhi Limthongkul's Manager.co.th is the central place for anti-Thaksin movement and Sondhi have repeatedly claimed the government was about to shut down or block their website, It does not appear that the Manager site was ever blocked although around the times of the accusations the site returned timeout errors. It could be that many people heard these rumors and tried to view the site at once 36

overloading the servers. (Morris, 2006) Beside of politics, the censorship on other kinds of web sites had still continued. In February 2006, Thai government blocked access in the country to the Yale University Press web site. (Jaschick, 2006) Yale University Press is the publisher of controversial “The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej” book by Paul Handley, a journalist who lived 13 years in Thailand. The reason given was lèse majesté law. The book itself was also banned. There were report that Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, which list this book, were blocked by Thai government as well. The opinion was divided. John Kulka, Yale University Press Senior Editor defended the book and the author. Thai students at Yale supported their government’s action. (Warrick-Alexander, 2006) From FACT's May 2006 block list, the number of blocked sites rose to 2,328. Pornography was still the largest group. The new addition categories in the blocked list are anonymous proxy, political and monarchy. (FACT, 2006e) Since the blocking of anonymous proxy servers is always low profile, this block list is the first evidence of blocking them. Ministry of ICT became the key role of internet censorship in Thailand, along with the Royal Thai Police and DSI. This period end with coup d'état on 19 September 2006.

4.2.3 Third Period (19 September 2006-March 2007) 2006 coup d'état turned the political game upside down. Almost immediately after the night of coup, the military protest groups setup a web sites against it. 19sep.org was shut down with three day after the coup. Sombat Ngamboon-anong, who registered the 19sep.org, said he had been informed by the hosting service provider that the Web site had been closed at the order from Ministry of ICT. (The Nation, 2006b) The Ministry of ICT, given power by the Order Number 51 of the coup, invited all companies and operators to discuss cooperation methods in helping the government “to restrict, control, stop or destroy information deemed to affect the 1 Full text available at Relevant Laws section in the Appendix

37

constitutional monarchy.” (bang_daniel, 2006) 19sep.org was blocked and unblocked frequently. In December 2006, Sombat reported that the site was blocked six times in total. Sometimes no reason was given or the government denied the censorship. Sombat denied the lèse majesté accusation, said only anti-coup in his site. (The Nation, 2006f) Higher profile case came later in early October. The web site of Midnight University (www.midnightuniv.org), a group of scholars and intellectuals based in Chiang Mai was shut down after they held a high-profile protest against the draft interim constitution. (Bhumiprabhas, 2006a) Midnight University consists of six scholars well-respected historian Nidhi Eawseewong, Worawit Charoenlert, Somchai Preechasilpakul, Chatchawan Boonpan, Kriengsak Chetwattanawanich and Somkiat Tangnamo. Midnight University’s protest and petition were supported by well-known scholars in Southeast Asia Studies around the world. (Bhumiprabhas, 2006b) Midnight University brought their case to Administrative Court and was granted an interim injunction to unblock their website. (Asian Human Rights Commission, 2006) Dr. Sitthichai Pokai-udom, the new Minister of ICT in the interim cabinet, became the front man of internet censorship in Thailand. He was the founder and the rector of Mahanakorn University of Technology. His career was a lecturer of Electronics Engineering Department. The third block list from FACT was dated as 13 October 2006, almost a month after the coup. There were 2,475 sites in total, quite the same level as May 2006 list. According to FACT analysis, it was the first time that the list contained gambling sites. The anonymous proxy category was salted by Southern separatist's sites. The political category also contained proxy sites as well as international news sites including BBC, CNN, Yahoo News, Seattle P-I. The royal monarchy category then consisted of anti-coup sites. FACT also revealed the Ministry of ICT's method to distributing block lists to Thai ISPs via the i-am-thai.com web site, which is actually http://cyberinspector.org/ict. The web site was not password protected and can be accessed by anyone who knew the URL. (FACT, 2006a)

38

FACT or Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (http://facthai.wordpress.com) was launched in November 2006. It has some supports from some international human right groups. FACT occasionally reveals the leaked Ministry of ICT's block lists on its site. FACT's first task was the open letter to Google, requesting not to follow the Thai government's order to censor. (FACT, 2006b) Google replied that it had not been contacted from Thai government yet and would not block Thai users from Google cache. (FACT, 2006c) The new government appointed by the Council for Democratic Reform was criticised by the dictatorial Order Number 5. It then pushed Computer Crime Act 2, one of six cyber laws that had been proposed for several years, to the coup-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA). The first draft was passed by 170:4. (Thairath, 2006) Some of media professionals expressed their concerns on the freedom of speech under the new Computer Crime Act. (Prachatai, 2006) Pornography became public discussion again. Camfrog (www.camfrog.com), video chat software from American company, gained popularity among Thai teens. While Camfrog mainly aims for communication, Thai teens turned it to sex chat instead. Camfrog had been used by Thai teens for a while but the story reached mainstream media in December 2006. The parents expressed their concern to Ministry of Culture, the responsible organisation for morale issues. Ministry of Culture then asked Ministry of ICT and the police to block this program. (The Nation, 2006e) Four months after the coup, the number of blocked sites increased from 2,475 in October 2006 to 13,435 in January 2007. This number is from FACT’s 11 January 2007 block list. According to FACT, Royal Thai Police cited the number of web sites they blocked was more than 32,500 but no proof given. The informal email requests for blocking from Ministry of ICT was confirmed. (FACT, 2007b) Till the date, Midnight University is the only Thai web site protected by Administrative Court. Thailand's press-freedom ranking drop from 107th out of 168 countries in 2005 to 122nd place in 2006 on the Reporters Without Borders’ Worldwide Press Freedom Index (Bhumiprabhas and Rojanaphruk, 2007) This led the team from Human Rights Program, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, to come to 2 The text of related article is available in Appendix

39

Thailand for investigation. (FACT, 2007a) January 2007 was also the month of political turmoil again. Thaksin gave his first interview to after exiled CNN from Singapore. The program, scheduled to on air on 15 January 22:20 local time, was censored by the order of the military junta. (Cropley, 2007) The screen was replaced by a graphic of hollywood stars and entitled “Programming will return shortly.” CNN.com was totally inaccessible from most ISPs based in Thailand. (Jardin, 2007a) However, the interview transcript and also several translations were published in many newspapers and numerous sites. The record of program can be watched from YouTube and other video sites. The full program was rerun on UBC cable TV on 20 January. Thaksin-related program on UBC was blocked again on 23 January. (2Bangkok.com, 2008) The ambiguous reasons for blocking created anger for some internet users. In February, FACT submitted an official list of questions on censorship to Minister of ICT, Dr. Sitthichai Pokaiudom. Under the provisions of Thailand’s Official Information Act, government agencies must provide information formally requested from the public within 30 days; the only reasons for refusal are rare cases of national security or law enforcement. Ministry of ICT replied on 8 March 2007 argued it did not censor internet, just suggested “inappropriate” sites to the ISPs. (FACT, 2007c) The characteristic of this period is the domination of political issue in censorship front. Interim government used media censorship to counter Thai Rak Thai’s opposition and anti-coup movement. However, it is quite difficult to distinguish Thai Rak Thai supporters, anti-coup protestors from NGOs and the anti-royalists. Thaksin’s international fame among foreign media also caused trouble to the interim government and the coup. The CNN and The King Never Smiles cases showed that internet censorship has been included in government’s multi-medium censorship strategy. In this period, the primary reason of blocking is national security due to the Order Number 5 of the coup. Although, in many cases no reason were given at all. The method of censorship had developed as well. Some inaccessibilities were ambiguous between government blocking and technical problem. 40

The lèse majesté had not been a big issue in this period, nor the pornography except Camfrog case. This period also introduced a new stakeholder to censorship circle: Ministry of Culture, which takes part only in the cultural and morale topics. This period lasted until the YouTube incident in March 2007.

4.2.4 Fourth Period (March 2007-23 December 2007) On 9 March 2007, there were few reports for the inaccessibilities of YouTube from Thailand. (Pantip.com, 2007) The users were redirected to Ministry of ICT web site 3. The story was published on Boeing Boeing blog in the same day (Jardin, 2007b). No reason was given on this case. The speculation from Mashable blog was the Thaksin/ CNN clip. (Cashmore, 2007a) There was rumour around that a mocking parody clip against the king was the reason. The access to YouTube via IP address instead of domain name was still possible. On 4 April 2007, Sitthichai, the Minister of ICT, gave an interview to Reuters. He admitted his order to block entire YouTube site after Google declined to withdraw that mocking clip. (Wong-Anan, 2007) Although, he said the access would be resumed when the allegedly offensive item was withdrawn. Within that day, The relevant page on YouTube said the video had ”been removed by the user”. (Kazmin, 2007) Julie Supun, head of global communications for YouTube, gave a comment to International Herald Tribune that “the company was disappointed that the site had been blocked in Thailand.” This Thailand’s YouTube case followed the blocking of YouTube in Turkey and Brazil earlier that year. The situation is very similar to Turkey case. Turkey government cut off access to the site for several days to block a video deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Insulting Ataturk is a crime in Turkey. The Brazil Court ordered YouTube blocked due to the privacy model clip. (Fuller, 2007a) Major international news agents: CNN, BBC, Financial Times, Fox, Voice of America, AFP, reported this news extensively. This incident became media’s interest. Majority of press editorial supported Minister of ICT's action. Thanong Khanthong, a columnists at The Nation newspaper, asked 3 Screenshot is provided in Appendix

41

YouTube “what law is it referring to? Its own or that of Thailand?” He also praised YouTube policy to remove any pornographic videos but criticised the lack of understanding to Thailand's royal context. (Khanthong, 2007) The public opinions were divided into freedom of speech side and law enforcement side. On 7 April 2007, YouTube talked with the Minister of ICT and offered to “educate” Thai authorities how it works in the hope of ending a ban on the site. Supun told AFP that YouTube “would not take down videos that do not violate its policies, and will not assist in implementing censorship.” She added “It’s up to the Thailand government to decide whether to block specific videos, but we would rather that than have them block the entire site.” Till that date, four more videos had been posted. (AFP, 2007) On 10 April 2007, there was a report from Minister’s advisor that he planned to go to the USA to talk with Eric Schmidt, Google CEO in San Francisco. (Blognone, 2007) No follow up was reported. On 4 May, Sitthichai told a meeting of webmasters that he would take court action against YouTube. (Ruangdit and Chongfuengparinya, 2007) In parallel with lèse majesté YouTube incident, politics was also an issue in the same period. Thaksin supporters launched a Thaksin fansite hi-thaksin.net in early March. It managed to publish Thaksin's letter and video to Thai people on the site. The access to hi-thaksin.net was broken on 13 March. The bad-named Ministry of ICT was accused. It denied the charge and argued the high load on hi-thaksin.net. (The Nation, 2007a) Hi-thaksin.net countered Ministry of ICT's claim and said it was liar. Thai people can access to the site via hi-thaksin.org instead. (narok119, 2007) Other 16 anti-coup sites were blocked again in May. (2Bangkok.com, 2007) On 8 April 2007, Pantip.com Rajadamnern cafe, the most popular political forum, was shutdown due to the national security. Its page said “the ministry has asked for the temporary closure of [the political page] Rajadamneon Room after it found several topics that might endanger national security.” (The Nation, 2007b) It later revealed that Pantip.com self-censored itself citing the Minister’s order. Some opinion speculated that Pantip wanted to avoid debate on YouTube, which led to the royal discussion. Rajadamnern reopened again three days later.

42

Other web sites: Mashable.com, Newsground.com, Wordpress.com and some parts of Blogspot.com, were reported inaccessible from March to May. (Cashmore, 2007b; iWat, 2007, Poakpong, 2007; Bangkok Pundit, 2007) Since these sites are low impact cases, they did not got attention from media. No questions were asked and no obvious reasons were given. In June, Sitthichai gave an exclusive interview to International Herald Tribune. He admitted that he “is sick of people trying to get him to close down web sites.” (Fuller, 2007b) Ministry of ICT planned to lift YouTube ban in June (Korman, 2007) but actually it was lifted in the end of August. (Jackson S., 2007) This news was also reported by international news agents including BBC, Financial Times and CNET. The final draft of Computer Crime Act passed National Legislative Assembly on 10 May 2007 by 119:1 votes. It was officially announced in the gazette on 19 June and was in effect on 19 July. Along with other hacker-related and traffic logging issues, the Computer Crime Act allows internet censorship by Ministry of ICT officials under the court order. Some thought it was better improvement over Order Number 5 previously used by the coup. Sitthichai promised no web site closing down by authorities after the law was in effect. (The Nation, 2007c) He stepped down from Minister of ICT on 21 September due to the regulation issue as well as two other ministers. They hold shares totalling more than 5 per cent of the equity in various private companies. (Pratuangkrai and Khaengkhan, 2007) The censorship situation in the second half of the year, after the new law was in effect and Sitthichai stepped down, was not outstanding as the first. Two forum posters were arrested by the Computer Crime Act with Lèse majesté charge in September. This news were not reported by mainstream media and the real name of posters were not given. The story can be obtained from alternative media or foreign human right sites. The charges were dropped later in October. (Reporters Without Borders, 2007b) From YouTube, hi-thaksin and Rajadamnern cases, the media discussed that the government “losing Internet PR war.” The Nation cited Sitthichai's admission that government was “falling behind.” He said the web site closing down did not work 43

since the opposition can open a new site easily. Sitthichai admitted the government's website have been unable to attract people to visit their web pages or to participate in the same manner as the private sector had done with their target group. He also stated the ban of YouTube would continue. (Pinijparakarn, 2007) The high profile internet censorship around the world, including Thailand, caught CNN's attention. The other countries are Egypt and China. (Voigt, 2007) In this period, FACT published block lists twice. The fifth block list is dated as 12 March 2007. The total number drops from 13,435 in January to 10,885. The sixth and last block list is dated 28 May 2007. The number slightly increases to 11,326. The secret i-am-thai.net site was gone but the lists were still distributed to ISPs. (FACT, 2007d) The censorship situation in Thailand made Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), New York-based nonprofit organisation, included Thailand in “Top 10 countries where press freedom has most deteriorated.” While not included in the Top 5 of world's worst freedom, Thailand is among “long-term erosion” countries. (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2007) Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement said “Blocking cyber dissidents obstructs return to democracy.” It claimed that four main authorities on internet censorship are Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MICT) and the Royal Thai Police, in collaboration with the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) and the Telecommunication Authority (TOT), which provide Thailand’s international internet gateways. (Human Rights Watch, 2007) There are two significant political events in this period. The first is the dissolution of Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party by the Constitutional Tribunal on 30 May 2007. 111 party members banned from participating in politics for five years. The remaining members moved to newly founded People's Power Party (PPP). The other is the 2007 Constitution Referendum on 19 August 2007. It passed by 57.8% and the new general elections were set on December. (Janssen, 2007) This period ends by the general elections on 23 December 2007, which also brought the country back to democracy. 44

The main characteristic of this period is the significant rising of lèse majesté charges. Lèse majesté charges were blended with anti-coup and pro-Thaksin movement and were not easy to distinguish. The other interesting aspect is the type of media was changed from textual data only to rich media as video. The number of blocked sites is in the same level as third period but the public awareness is much higher. This period can be said the most filtered period of internet history in Thailand to date.

4.2.5 Fifth Period (23 December 2007-Present) 23 December 2007 elections were the end of coup period. People’s Power Party, Thaksin's proxy party, won 233 of 480 seats and formed a coalition government. The new Prime Minister is Samak Sundaravej, an experienced politician. That means Thaksin side returned to power in political world and means the end of censorship on anti-coup and pro-Thaksin sites. But the political turmoil has not finished yet. PAD began its second movement. This time the charge against Samak’s government is again lèse majesté. Samak himself is the one of well-known royalists in the country so the accusation has no effect with him. However, Jakrapob Penkair, former anti-coup activist who became the Minister for the PM’s Office, was forced to resign from his post on 30 May 2008. The PAD cited his English speech on August 2007 as lèse majesté. Jonathan Head, BBC’s Asia-Pacific correspondent who organized the event, was also filed by that charge. The suit is still on the court at the time of writing. (Pongwanan, 2008c) On the internet front, lèse majesté became the sole issue of censorship in the first half of the year. On 4 January 2008, Fah Diew Kan (literally translated as “Same Sky”) publishing was shut down from its hosting server, Net Service Ltd by lèse majesté content on its web board. (Pongwanan, 2008a) Thanapol Eawsakul, editor of Fah Diew Kan, told that the ICT forced the host server to stop hosting his website. According to Thanapol, ICT did not directly use its authority under the Computer Crime Act but forcing the private company to act instead. Fah Diew Kan publishes a quarterly magazine of the same name, featuring articles on social and political issues. One of its volumes was banned by the police for alleged lèse majesté offences. 45

In March 2008, Krungthep Turakij newspaper quoted a source at the ICT that the ministry could pursue legal proceedings only with websites registered in Thailand, and was then planning a ‘hack and crack’ programme to hack offensive websites hosted abroad and delete their contents, because the legal process would take too long. The source said the ministry had only 30 so-called ICT cops, so it was difficult to keep a thorough watch. (Pongwanan, 2008b) In May, Prachatai, an independent online news site, was inaccessible from TOT network. TOT denied of blocking (Prachathai, 2008b) But ten days later, the new Minister of ICT on Samak’s Cabinet Mun Patanotai gave an interview to radio and admitted his order to shutdown YouTube again because of lèse majesté clip. The other two are Fah Diew Kan and Prachatai. (Prachatai, 2008a) Hi-thaksin.net, the most famous pro-Thaksin site, was shut itself down on 29 April 2008 due to the request from Thaksin himself. According to web master, The website had to shut down to protect Mr Thaksin because it was recently accused of insulting a highly-respected institution. (Farrelly, 2008) While FACT has no longer published the block list, Bangkok Post newspaper cited the total number of blocked sites from Ministry of ICT officials as 1,893 sites. It is the tiny fraction of latest leaked block list on May, which contains 17,883 sites. (Sambandaraksa, 2008) As mentioned above, the characteristic of this period is the lift of anti-coup web sites. The lèse majesté is sole outstanding dispute. Pornography, gambling and cultural issues are in the same level as other periods. The political turmoil, which reflects the internet censorship situation, has still continued.

4.3 Block Lists Analysis Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) published six leaked block lists from the Ministry of ICT between January 2004 to May 2007. Due to the huge number of 46

blocked sites, deep analysis is not possible for the research period. However, only number analysis is possible. Date of block list

blocked sites

01 January 2004

1,247

26 May 2006

2,272

13 October 2006

2,475

11 January 2007

13,435

12 March 2007

10,885

28 May 2007

11,326

Table 1: Number of blocked sites from leaked block lists When putting the number to graph, it is obvious that the blocked sites after 2006 Coup D'etat (vertical line in the graph) was growing rapidly. 16000 14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 28/06/03 14/01/04 01/08/04 17/02/05 05/09/05 24/03/06 10/10/06 28/04/07 14/11/07

Illustration 1: Number of blocked sites by time

47

5 Findings II: Survey Results This chapter provides the result from the survey. The purpose of the survey is to answer the second and third research questions: what is the perception of Thai general public on internet censorship and what did they do to avoid the censorship.

5.1 Quantitative Survey Results There are 38 participants who replied the survey questions in time. All participants are native Thai who live in Thailand at the moment. 76% of them are male. 55% listed their ages of 25-30. The oldest participant listed himself in over 35 years range. The youngest listed himself in 15-20 years range. 79% of all participants have background in IT industry, which means working or studying in this field.

Male Female Not specified

Illustration 2: Gender of participants

Age range

Numbers

Percentage

15-20

1

3.00%

20-25

8

21.00%

25-30

21

55.00%

30-35

7

18.00%

Over 35

1

3.00%

Table 2: Age of participants 48

Most of them have extensive internet experiences. The average length of using internet is 10.17 years, which is quite high. The longest internet experience is 15 years and the lowest is 6 years. It should be noted that some participants did not answer this question. When asked the degree of necessity of internet, 10 participants (26%) answered “indispensable.” The most famous choice is “a lot” (58%). 11% answered “medium” and only 1 participant answered “low” (3%).

Internet usage Numbers

Percentage

Low

1

3.00%

Medium

4

11.00%

A lot

22

58.00%

Indispensable 10

26.00%

Table 3: Degree of necessity of internet These participants share the same characteristic. They are urban middle-class office workers. Some of them are studying in both secondary school and university. Most of them are quite young (below 30) and they are active internet users. Their everyday life heavily depend on the internet. This group of participants is not the representatives of general Thai internet users. However, the answers from these participants are interesting since they can represent the “active citizen” of Thai society.

5.2 Qualitative Survey Results It should be noted that all participants answered in Thai. All the text appears in this writing is roughly translated to English by me. The copy of survey questions are provided in the Appendix.

5.2.1 The Effect of Internet Censorship Question number 3 is the affect of internet censorship. This question try to test that 49

whether the participants, which frequently use the internet, got affected by the internet censorship or not. 68% of the participants said they got affected by internet censorship at home. 32% said they also have the problem at work as well. (It should be noted that some participants are students and did not answer the ‘at work’ question) When asked, majority of participants thought of YouTube incident at first. Some of them complained the inaccessibility to YouTube. This is a good indicator for the popularity of YouTube as a new entertainment medium like TV. For example, Participant No. 6 answered “The most annoying is YouTube case since there are many major livecasting sessions on YouTube.” The other comments are about the royal institution. Some said they knew about the blocking but they had nothing to do with those sites. However, Participant No. 2 said he can not access to information about royal institution, which he should “be able to from the citizenship right, to read and decide by his own.” One interesting comment is from Participant No. 4. He said “My employer is government body so it has no impact by censorship.” It can be interpret as negligence of the censorship authorities who concentrate more on home internet. It can be summarised that majority of participants were affected by the censorship. The stories of web sites blocking and YouTube dispute are publicly known among these people.

5.2.2 The Method to Avoid Censorship This section is the main answer to the third research question: how people avoid the censorship or infiltrate to the censored sites. Question Number 4 asked the way people infiltrate to the censored sites. 61% of them know how to use proxy or special anonymity software like Tor (The Onion Router, www.torproject.org). This number is quite high since the participants who do not have IT background also use them. However, many free proxy server sites were 50

also blocked by the government so they were difficult to obtain from search engine. Participants needed to ask them from friends instead. Tor is the other way to access the block sites but “it is too slow for real world usage” according to Participant No. 12. The other participant thought both proxy and Tor “are not reliable enough and too complex to setup for ordinary users.” The other methods are IP spoofing software, FoxyProxy add-on for Firefox and one participant used Virtual Private Network (VPN) to office's network for YouTube watching. Four participants (11%) posted and discussed the censorship on public forums. 9 participants (24%) did not do anything for censored sites. From this question, it suggests that majority of users know the infiltrating techniques. One inspiration is the participant’s dependency to YouTube as entertainment channel. The awareness of anti-censorship group

Question 12 is about the anti-censorship group (in this case, FACT). 53% of participants know FACT but only one participant thought it has some impact. One participant suggested “Internet-based activity will not work. The group should move on to policy advocation.”

5.2.3 The Opinions on Internet Censorship These following questions asked the participants on various aspects of censorship. Agree/disagree on censorship

Question Number 5 asked their agreement on internet censorship. Four participants (11%) answered “totally agree” with internet censorship. The most popular choice is “partially agree” with 22 participants (58%). 12 participants responded with “totally disagree” (32%). It should be noted that some participants answered “totally disagree” but still provided the particular topics that should be censored in the next question. This might be the confusion by the question.

51

Opinion on internet censorship

Numbers Percentage

Totally agree

4

11.00%

Partially agree

22

58.00%

Totally disagree

12

32.00%

Table 4: Opinion on Internet Censorship The reasons behind “totally disagree” are various but they share some similarities. The first approach is freedom of speech issue. The second approach is the competitive of free market (“Everything has its own way. Content quality will be decisive factor”, Participant No. 31) Some participants answered “totally disagree” with conditions. Participant No. 13 thought age is the condition: “The mature users have full right to access”, while Participant No. 7 thought the censorship should be done in micro-level instead (i.e. parental level). For the “partially agree” group, the given reasons are more diverse. The first approach is the level of freedom. Participant No. 3 cited “there is no 100% freedom” which is supported by “Thailand is not ready for some kind of discussion” from Participant No. 28. Second approach is the safety of internet. Participant No. 26 answered “There must be clean and safe internet for young people. This include the malware, spyware, virus or porn popup sites.” Some thought the censored topics must be only the globallyaccepted topics like child pornography. The other answers suggested the process or method of censorship instead. Participant No. 28 thought “The censorship process should be more systematic.” Participant No. 26 gave more details: “Internet censorship is exhaustive and duplicate task. Black list sharing between network administrators is more efficient way.”

52

What topics that should be censored

Question Number 6 is about the topics that should be censored. This question is opened question but also suggests several examples including religion, politics, pornography and royal institution. Some participants also came up with their own topics such as gambling and terrorists. From 9 topics in Chapter 3, 6 topics were suggested by the participants as the table below. Nobody mentioned about censoring proxy sites nor online games. The additional category is malicious site (virus, malware) which has no evidence of government blocking. It should be noted that one participant can give more than one topic. Most of participants who answered “totally disagree” from previous question did not reply to this question as expected. Topic

Numbers

Percentage

Royal institution

14

37.00%

Child pornography

12

32.00%

Pornography

11

29.00%

Terrorists or Separatists

6

16.00%

Religion or Culture

6

16.00%

Gambling

6

16.00%

Malicious sites

2

5.00%

Table 5: Topics of censorship The top topic is royal institution as expected but the child pornography and generic pornography do not fall behind. It is quite interesting to see child pornography ranking second since Thailand is not the country that concentrates on child pornography in particular. The possible reason is this group of participants are welleducated and familiar with western culture. It is also surprising that religion/culture topics got few supporters since Thailand's strictness to religious and cultural value is quite high. It can be explained in the same 53

way as above that this group of participants are young generation and tend to accept more diverse culture. A number of participants agree on the same concept: explicitly illegal content only. Participant No. 3 said “Censorship should always consult related law.” This was supported by Participant No 36, “must be only unambiguous illegal content.” However, on debatable topics, their opinions are diverse. Participant No. 18 thought “we should protect our highest king but for other topics, there is no need” while Participant No. 26 said “The content that is related to freedom of speech ,e.g. politics, constructive critics, religious and culture, should not be blocked.” The method of censorship

Question Number 7 is the level or method of censorship. (“On which level of censorship should be operated?”) As same as Question Number 6, participants who answered “totally disagree” did not take part. This question also gave several examples such as law, policy, ISP.

Method of censorship

Numbers

Percentage

Law

15

39.00%

Government policy

9

24.00%

Organisational (school, university, workplace)

9

24.00%

International Gateway

8

21.00%

ISP

7

18.00%

Individual's PC (NetNanny, Parental control)

3

8.00%

Table 6: Method of censorship It is not surprised that the individual's PC got fewest supporters. Computer users generally want to have full control over their own PC or even workplace's PC. However, People who supported this choice thought differently. Participant No. 1 had more condition: “Filtering on public PCs is not censorship since they are shared facility and have specific purpose (e.g. for education).” 54

Law is the distinct choice. Many government's unclear filtering issues may be the main cause. People might disagree with the government behavior and want to make it legitimate by law. However, from following question, many participants did not know about the Cyber Crime Act, the law that gives legitimate blocking by court order. Organisational level also got some attention. Participant No. 12 supported it by saying “Enterprise censorship is ok since the users are employees.” Although, Participant No. 21 suggested “detection and warning” rather than blocking. One answer is “depends.” From Participant No. 26, “Age dependency content, which causes no harm to mature user, should be filtered in school. The illegal content then should be filtered at ISP level or Gateway.” The difference from other kind of censorship

Question Number 8 is the difference between internet censorship and other media censorship. 74% thought internet censorship is different. Various reasons were given from both side. Participants who thought they are the same tend to be anti-censorship. The given reasons are “they are the same in general” and “They are all censorship. No difference.” The participants who thought they are different gave more variety opinions. They can be categorized and listed below: Attribute of the medium 1. “Internet censorship is all or none. TV and other media can be accessed partially” 2. “Film, TV and books are local and have high cost to disseminate while internet is not. Censoring internet from given geographic location causes asymmetric flow of information” 3. “Internet is two way communication, not only broadcasting tool” 55

4. “Other media have rating system. Internet has not” Demographic reason 1. “Internet users are more educated than other media” 2. “Only small fraction of people can access internet” Legal or process •

“Film and TV have censorship committee. Internet has not”

•

“Internet censorship was done without notice or explanation”

Freedom of speech •

“Internet censorship is about disagreement on opinion. Other media censorships mainly focus on morale issues”

Pragmatic issue •

“Internet censorship is not practically possible. The censored sites will reborn somehow”

•

“People who want to censor internet are against globalization”

The change of internet censorship after 2006 Coup

Question Number 9 is the opinion on internet censorship after 2006 Coup. The aim of this question is to measure the change of internet censorship before and after 2006 Coup D’etat. This is also opened question. The participants' responses can be divided into two groups: increasing/decreasing and agree/disagree. 29% of all answered participants suggested the internet censorship had increased. One participant cited the noticeable increasing of royal-related censoring. 3 people (8%) felt it was unchanged. One participant thought the censorship “had no effect with his life” but still think the YouTube incident is unreasonable. For the second group, 39% of all participants disagreed with censorship. Some cited the blocking of Thaksin’s CNN interview as the blockage of freedom. One 56

participant (3%) agreed with the censorship. The other answer is “don’t know” (3%). The difference from other countries

Question number 10 asked the participants to compare the internet censorship in Thailand to other countries. The result is listed below.

Level

Numbers

Percentage

Lower

6

16.00%

Average

8

21.00%

More

15

39.00%

In the top censored countries

2

5.00%

Don't know

4

11.00%

Table 7: Level of Internet Censorship in Thailand compared with other countries

Majority of participants agreed for “Thailand has more internet censorship than other countries” but it is relative value. Many of them also cited “much better than China or middle east countries.” On the other side, some thought “Thailand is more than other democracy countries.” China is the most cited country from answers. 7 participants put China name in their answers. This might indicate the perception of China as the top censored country from Thai media.

5.2.4 The Awareness of the Computer Crime Act Question Number 11 asked about opinion on 2007 Computer Crime Act. The result is listed below.

57

Opinion

Numbers

Percentage

Don't know/have no information

14

37.00%

Disagree with the Act

3

8.00%

Agree with the Act

2

5.00%

The Act has no impact on censorship

2

5.00%

The Act make it easier to censor internet

1

3.00%

The Act make it harder to censor internet

1

3.00%

Table 8: Opinion on 2007 Computer Crime Act Surprisingly, majority of participants did not have information about the Act nor have any opinion on it. This is possibly the result of inefficient promoting campaign from Ministry of ICT. The other possible explanation is whether the participants are active citizen, they still do not engage with more complex issues like law. Most remarks came from disagree side: “Computer Crime Act is too rush. It directly copied from same EU Act without thought and consideration”, “It’s ambiguous and provide advantage to current government” and “Too generalized, like lèse majesté law.” Some thought the Act itself is good but did not believe the government will follow it: “It’s just a paper. The government is always ready to violate if needed” and “The Cybercrime Act try to make internet censorship legitimate but in practice, government does not.”

5.2.5 The Future of Internet Censorship Question 13 asked the participants to forecast internet censorship in the future.

58

Opinion on future censorship

Numbers

Percentage

Increase

20

53.00%

Same

5

13.00%

Decrease

7

18.00%

Depend on situation

4

11.00%

Table 9: Opinion on Internet Censorship in the future Due to the political situation, more than half of participants thought the censorship will increase in the future. All participants except those who answered “same” seem to relate the censorship to politics. So their answers can be viewed as ‘political forecast’ as well. The group who answered “same” thought that censorship is social phenomenon and it does not depend on politics.

5.2.6 Additional Opinions on Internet Censorship Question 14 asked for more opened opinion on any aspect of internet censorship. The answers are very varied. However, they can be grouped into 7 categories. 1. Opinions on censorship process This is one of most suggested issues from the survey. Whether the participants agree with internet censorship or not, they thought the process of censorship is not opened enough. Many unexplainable blocks were the reasons. From one participant: “Censorship is acceptable but need to be done clearly.” The other comment is “Must be opened, clear and accountable.” One participant suggested the “compensation for the misjudged censored case.” 2. Censorship is not practical Some believed that censorship is not practical solution since “no kind of censorship is 100% secure” and “Censorship is useless since the enthusiasts will definitely find the way to access .” Censorship also encourage people to find what is being censored. One participant said “it makes me curious and find the way to access it.”

59

3. Business concern The first participant expressed his concern to web industry: “Censorship will discourage web business.” The other thought about the term of service between ISPs and customers. “Since most of censorship are at ISP level. The customers should ask for their consumer right.” 4. Internet censorship is not the root of problems Some believed that internet censorship is just the one of results from political and royal dispute. “Need to solve both problems first.” Some suggested that the root cause is the freedom of speech in Thailand. “Censorship in Thailand will never disappear if Thai people still want to control other’s opinion.” 5. Concern that censorship/self-censorship will become social norm This group might be the most interesting opinion. One participant express her concern: “Internet censorship is not fearsome. However, if the internet users easily obey the government censorship, then we should worry.” The other one thought in the same way: “Censorship phenomenal in this political instability period will eventually become social norm and people will get used to with it.” One participant admitted the self-censorship on his blog: “I do selfcensorship. The reason is not caused by government policy but I choose by my own will to be live peacefully in this country.” 6. Propose the solutions Eight people thought that “education is a better solution” which is expectable since people tend to blame education for various social problems or believe that education will solve any problems. The other proposed solutions are rating system, parental control, and notice message. It is quite obvious that no generally-agreed solution available for internet 60

censorship problem. 7. Others ◦ “Opinion on censorship is varied by generation” ◦ “Censorship is always debatable with free speech”

61

6 Discussions 6.1 The Opinions on Internet Censorship Majority of participants partially agreed with the internet censorship, depending on the topics. Some liberal participants did not agree with the censorship at all. Almost all of them questioned about the accountability of the censorship process. However, the demographic of participants does not represent the general character of Thai citizen. The participating group is well educated, liberal thinking and actively engaging on public issues. This problem caused by the limit of time and effort on this research. Almost all participants thought the internet censorship differ from the censorship of other media. The given reasons are varied from the different attribute between media to the different process of censorship. More than half of participants thought the level of censorship in Thailand is average or more than average compared to the other countries in the world. Most of them believed the censorship in Thailand is better than China, the most censored country in their opinion. This might be related with the concentration on China’s internet censorship news coverages reported by both western and local media. The other concerns on internet censorship in Thailand are business issues, the pragmatic of the censorship, the adaptiveness of the people to the censorship, freedom of speech and globalization.

6.2 The Topics of Censorship From nine topics of censorship in section 3.1, only two of them are unique and related to Thailand’s social context. They are politics and royal institution. The political topic is clearly linked to the real world political crisis since 2005. The royal institution issue is Thailand’s unique character. Both of them are heavily 62

affected by the 2006 Coup D’etat. While the censorship of political web sites were changed from time to time by the side of political force who was ruling the country, the royal dispute had continued steadily after 2006 Coup D’etat. On pornography, terrorists, gambling, and religion/culture, the general characteristic are quite the same as other countries. These are prohibited topics by the criminal laws. The laws unambiguously state which content could be able to publish, whether they are online medium or not. The Computer Crime Act just supports the process of censorship on these illegal topics but not specify which content. Online gaming is special case. It is more likely to the rating system on TV and films industry since it depends on age. Also, the public attention on online gaming had not lasted long. The time-limiting of Ragnarok is the only one case throughout the timeline. It can be viewed as how a society handle with the new disruptive factors (in this case, online gaming was considered as threat by parents). When the society is acquainted with online gaming, nobody seems to care about it again. The prohibition of proxy sites and other accidental sites is very interesting. The government considered proxies and anonymity softwares as the channel to access the prohibited content (i.e. royal and politics). In consequence, proxies and anonymity software were secondary threats to the national security. The ban of these tools can be discussed that Thai government have no solid rational on Internet Censorship. They just do not want any Thai users to access the ‘inappropriate content’ at all. The accidental and unexplainable blocking (e.g. the Mashable case) is probably the sign of uncompetitiveness of Thai government on highly-technical online media. From the participants’ answers, there is no general agreement on the topics that should be censored. The royal institution comes first as expected but does not win the majority. This result is probably caused by the bias of many liberal participants. The percentage of royal institution should be higher if the group of participants were better distributed. People tend to accept any censored topics that prohibited by laws (e.g. gambling, pornography). It can be considered that these participants support “the rule of law” concept and tend to support everything that is legitimate. This argument is supported by the criticism on the political censorship and the complaint 63

on illegitimate censorship process during the Coup period.

6.3 The Situation of Internet Censorship From FACT’s leaked block lists, it is clear that the number of internet censorship in Thailand was rapidly rising after the 2006 Coup D’etat. The relationship between the politics and the censorship is very strong. Internet censorship now become new political tool, along with the traditional media censorship. We should see this phenomenon again if Thailand faces a major political crisis in the future (i.e. another Coup D’etat or massacre). From the participant’s viewpoint, most of them thought the level of censorship was rising suddenly after the 2006 Coup. Many of them were affected by the censorship in some ways. They also thought the level of censorship in the future depends on politics, whether they believed it will be rising or falling. These suggestions supports the hypothesis of the relationship between censorship and political situation. The level of internet censorship was reduced after the country was brought back to democracy but still higher than the pre-Coup period (First and Second Period in the timeline). The result from survey shows that majority of participants know how to avoid and infiltrate the censorship using special softwares. Even many proxy and anonymity software sites were blocked by the government, they were still famous and widely distributed among Thai internet users. The counter argument is this group of participants is quite tech-savvy and should have no problem on learning to use these softwares.

6.4 The Censorship Strategy Lessig’s framework was used to analyse the censorship strategy. Thai government behaved like the other governments on using only three of four Lessig’s regulators. The market force is not usable by government on the free economics countries. The other three regulators have been used in similar ways as the other countries. The first kind of regulation used by Thai government is the technical architecture

64

(“code”). The government just blocked the sites they considered as threat to the nation without any direct legitimate order or using the existing laws (using “law” regulator). This strategy worked quite well on the First Period. The government successfully got the approval from general public on the cultural or national belief topics (royal and religion). On the less controversial and law-prohibited topics like pornography and gambling, people just feel annoying but do not make the public complaint. However, as the politics, which is directly related to the freedom of speech, became dispute, citing only national security are not enough. Here comes the “law” regulator. In the First and Second Period the government just cited the existing related criminal laws (e.g. pornography, gambling and national security). It might work in the First Period but the Thai Rak Thai government in the Second Period started to get some trouble on censoring opposition web sites using these laws. On the Third and Fourth Period, the interim government had a new effective “law” for this job: the universal CNS Order Number 5. However, both the universality of the Order and the legal status of the Coup itself created a lot of critics over the censorship in these periods. The interim government then proposed the more legitimate Computer Crime Act through the legislative assembly channel instead. While the Act has been accepted from within the internet industry, the survey showed us that general internet users still have no clue about it. The most effective regulator might be the “social norm”, especially using in combination with Thailand’s unique perception on the royal institution. The lèse majesté law, which prohibits the critics on the royal members and has jail sentence, creates fear and leads the internet users to “self-censoring” themselves. The culture of highly respecting on royal institution helps the government gaining the public support on blocking claimed lèse majesté sites, for example: the YouTube, Prachatai or Far Diew Kan cases. The interim government under the Coup expanded this effective tactic against the oppositions. It blocked the anti-coup or pro-Thaksin sites with lèse majesté accusation alongside with the national security. The aspect of regulating by “social norm” is very interesting for Thailand case. There are very few countries with this special characters. The other countries from the literature review is Turkey, which does not allow the criticising on Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, father of the nation. 65

7 Conclusion and Recommendations Internet censorship in Thailand is the consequence of political turmoil since 2005 and the unique characteristic of Thailand, the royal institution and lèse majesté law. The lèse majesté law and royal institution have been used as political accusation for a long time since 1932 democratization. The government’s tight control and regulation on traditional media such as TV, radio and newspaper keeps only one side of view on royal monarchy and suppresses the other site. Furthermore, everyone has intended not to fix them or discuss about them, even the king himself said he did not mind, because the discussion on the king will fall into lèse majesté charge again. This “cycle of fear” has created a time bomb deep inside Thai society. The latest political turmoil in 2005 till now has brought back the royal institution to discussion again like every previous political disputes. But this time some Thais, especially urban middle-class, are already internet-connected. The different characteristic of internet (e.g. the coverage, the concept of border between states) creates a new challenge to Thai government, as well as other governments around the world. The Internet Censorship in Thailand can be viewed as the uncertainty and inefficiency of Thai government to deal with the new kind of media they never know before. Using Lessig's framework, Thai government have used three of four regulators. They can not use the market force since Thailand is free market and internet providers in Thailand are all private companies. (Discussed in Chapter 3, Internet Regulators section) The first and foremost regulator from Thai government is the “architecture” or technical constrain. While the government have not censored web site by themselves, they have ordered the ISPs to do so by their regulation power. After the 2006 Coup D’etat, law became the next tool. At the beginning, CNS Order Number 5, which many considered as ‘too general’ or ‘universal’, was used but the more legitimate Computer Crime Act was introduced later.

66

But Thai government discovered their most effective method not long after, the selfcensorship from all level of internet users. Utilizing the fear from lèse majesté law and the royal respecting norm in Thai society, most of Thai internet entrepreneurs, from ISPs to web hosting providers to webmasters, will avoid the conflict by selfcensoring themselves and their customers. For few entrepreneurs or individuals who tolerate this social norm, law enforcement is the next measure to be used. Political issue has been eclipsed by the royal issue since any in-power government tend to use lèse majesté accusation, the most effective accusation, on the opposition side. Because of this approach, The royal and political issues are blended together and then it is very difficult to discuss on politics without the royal institution. The public opinions on internet censorship can be divided into three levels. The first one is the agreement on censorship, whether internet-related or not, at all. A number of liberal participants completely disagree with any kind of censorship while the majority still agree with censorship on selected topics. The second issue is which topics to be censored. The opinions are variety. While the topic of royal institution comes first, it does not dominate. The other topics like pornography, terrorists, gambling, and cultural do not fall behind. Particular individual seems to have his/her own view and it differs by demographic group. It can be said that the dispute on what topics to be censored will continue among Thai public. The final issue is the process of internet censorship. Majority of participants agree that the censorship process under Coup government was not clear and accountable enough. The bad impression on the Coup period created bad reputation on Ministry of ICT and other censorship stakeholders. One of examples is the perception on Computer Crime Act. Many participants think the government will not follow it and will use its own outlaw way to deal with the ‘inappropriate’ content owners.

67

7.1 Recommendations on Further Research This dissertation studies only the internet censorship in Thailand. However, there are many reports and media coverage on the internet censorship situation in other countries. As discussed before, governments from all over the world have problem with internet and its disruptive attributes. The difference or similarity of the way each government deal with internet is interesting topic. While Thailand's perception on royal institution is unique, it is not the only one. There are few other countries with this similarity. For example, Turkey and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and father of the nation. The other venue is on the technical side. Thai government have used the technical errors (i.e. timeout, destination unreachable, DNS problems) and unpredictable period of censorship to make the censorship uncertainty and ambiguous. If one can investigate and conduct a scientific test on these kinds of inaccessibility and distinguish real censorship from errors, it will be a huge step forward to determine the censorship techniques. The final interesting aspect is about the internet and the political engagement among Thai people. The last chapter shows that majority of participants do not know about the Computer Crime Act, which is related directly to their online life. The level of online political engagement and how people use internet as ‘Virtual Democracy’ are the topics I would like to see.

Word Count: 18181

68

8 Bibliography 2Bangkok.com. (2008a). Thaksin interview. 2Bangkok.com. Available at: http:// 2bangkok.com/07/thaksininterview.shtml [Accessed August 16, 2008]. 2Bangkok.com. (2008b). Website censorship in Thailand. 2Bangkok.com. Available at: http://2bangkok.com/blocked.shtml [Accessed August 15, 2008]. AFP. (2007). YouTube offers to 'educate' Thai authorities about site. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/04/07/headlines/headlines_30031359.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Asian Human Rights Commission. (2006). THAILAND: Groups launch campaign against internet censorship. Available at: http://www.ahrchk.net/pr/ mainfile.php/2006mr/415/ [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Bangkok Post. (2007). DSI seeks to block YouTube videos. Bangkok Post. Available at: http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php? id=121896 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Bangkok Pundit. (2006). Freedom of Speech and Thailand. Bangkok Pundit. Available at: http://bangkokpundit.blogspot.com/2006/03/freedom-of-speechand-thailand.html [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Bangkok Pundit. (2007). BlogSpot.com Subdomains Being Blocked. Bangkok Pundit. Available at: http://bangkokpundit.blogspot.com/2007/05/ blogspotcom-subdomains-being-blocked.html [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Bangkokrecorder. (2004). Gambling in Thailand. Available at: http:// www.bangkokrecorder.com/magazine/bangkok-life/gambling-inthailand-548.html [Accessed August 22, 2008].

69

bang_daniel. (2006). Media clampdown in operation | Bangkok Metblogs. Bangkok Metblogs. Available at: http://bangkok.metblogs.com/2006/09/21/mediaclampdown-in-operation/ [Accessed August 15, 2008]. BBC. (2005). Thai districts impose martial law. BBC. Available at: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4402748.stm [Accessed August 13, 2008]. BBC. (2006). Thai election organisers jailed. BBC. Available at: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5212370.stm [Accessed August 22, 2008]. BBC. (2007). Thai PM blames rivals for blasts. BBC. Available at: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6222013.stm [Accessed August 13, 2008]. BBC. (2008). Thai people react to Thaksin's return. BBC. Available at: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7266278.stm [Accessed August 12, 2008]. Best, ML & Wade, KW. (2005). The Internet and Democracy: Global Catalyst or Democratic Dud?, The Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Available at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/12InternetDemocracy.pdf. Bhumiprabhas, S. (2006a). Midnight University website shut down after protest. The Nation. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/2006/10/01/politics/ politics_30015088.php [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Bhumiprabhas, S. (2006b). World scholars back Midnight University. The Nation. Available at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/10/05/politics/ politics_30015429.php [Accessed August 15, 2008].

70

Bhumiprabhas, S & Rojanaphruk , P. (2007). The shackles still remain. The Nation. Available at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/01/03/national/ national_30023147.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Blognone. (2007). Sitthichai going to meet Eric Schmidt? Available at: http:// www.blognone.com/node/4396 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. (2007). International Religious Freedom Report 2007 - Thailand. US Department of State. Available at: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90155.htm [Accessed August 13, 2008]. Cashmore, P. (2007a). YouTube Blocked in…Thailand. Mashable. Available at: http://mashable.com/2007/03/11/youtube-blocked-inthailand/ [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Cashmore, P. (2007b). Mashable.com Banned in Thailand. Mashable. Available at: http://mashable.com/2007/04/18/mashablecom-banned-in-thailand/ [Accessed August 16, 2008]. CAT Telecom. (2005). CAT Telecom Annual Report 2005. Available at: http:// ir.cattelecom.com/ar2005_eng.htm [Accessed August 13, 2008]. CAT Telecom. (2008). Internet Service Center. Available at: http://www.cat.net.th/ isp/ [Accessed August 13, 2008]. Channelnewsasia. (2006). Thai PM Thaksin says he'll step down. Available at: http:// www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/201527/1/.html [Accessed August 12, 2008]. CNN. (2007). Transcript: Thaksin Shinawatra interview - CNN.com. CNN. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/01/15/thaksin.interview/ index.html [Accessed August 12, 2008].

71

Committee to Protect Journalists. (2005). CPJ condemns censorship of two Web sites. 2005 News Alert. Available at: http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/ Thai28june05na.html [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Committee to Protect Journalists. (2007). Backsliders: A report on World Press Freedom Day. Available at: http://www.cpj.org/backsliders/index.html [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Cropley , E. (2007). Thai generals pull plug on Thaksin CNN interview. Reuters. Available at: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx? type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nBKK217219&sz=13 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Daily Xpress. (2008). Political passions run high. Daily Xpress. Available at: http:// www.dailyxpress.net/2008/05/26/coverstory/coverstory_2443.php [Accessed August 12, 2008]. Deibert, R et al. (2008). Access denied : the practice and policy of global Internet filtering, London, England: The MIT Press. Available at: http:// mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11329. Department of Special Investigation. (2006). The fact of Pulo.org and Manusaya.com cases. Department of Special Investigation. Available at: http:// www.dsi.go.th/dsi/news_index.jsp?id=1290 [Accessed August 15, 2008]. FACT. (2006a). Analysis: MICT Blocklist, 13 October 2006. FACT. Available at: http://facthai.wordpress.com/2006/11/16/analysis-mict-blocklist-13october-2006/ [Accessed August 15, 2008]. FACT. (2006b). An open letter to Google. FACT. Available at: http:// facthai.wordpress.com/2006/11/17/an-open-letter-to-google/ [Accessed August 15, 2008]. FACT. (2006c). Google’s reply. FACT. Available at: http://facthai.wordpress.com/ 72

2006/11/17/googles-reply/ [Accessed August 15, 2008]. FACT. (2006d). Blocklist - January 2004. FACT. Available at: http:// facthai.wordpress.com/2006/12/06/blocklist-jan04/ [Accessed August 15, 2008]. FACT. (2006e). An Analysis of MICT’s Secret Blocklist, 26 May 2006. FACT. Available at: http://facthai.wordpress.com/2006/12/06/analysis-mictblocklist-26-may-2006/ [Accessed August 15, 2008]. FACT. (2007a). Harvard University to Investigate Internet Censorship in Thailand. FACT. Available at: http://facthai.wordpress.com/2006/12/27/harvardinvestigation/ [Accessed August 16, 2008]. FACT. (2007b). Thai website censorship jumps by more than 500% since coup! FACT. Available at: http://facthai.wordpress.com/2007/01/15/thai-websitecensorship-jumps-by-more-than-500-since-coup/ [Accessed August 16, 2008]. FACT. (2007c). FACT wants answers from MICT. FACT. Available at: http:// facthai.wordpress.com/2007/02/09/fact-wants-answers-from-mict/ [Accessed August 16, 2008]. FACT. (2007d). Censors still busy: An Analysis of MICT’s Secret Blocklist March 12, 2007. FACT. Available at: http://facthai.wordpress.com/2007/03/27/ censors-still-busy-an-analysis-of-micts-secret-blocklist-march-12-2007/ [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Farrelly, N. (2008). http://hi-thaksin.net/. New Mandala. Available at: http:// rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala/2008/04/28/httphi-thaksinnet/ [Accessed August 17, 2008]. Fuller, T. (2007a). Web crackdown blocks YouTube in Thailand - International Herald Tribune. International Herald Tribune. Available at: http:// 73

www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/04/technology/thai.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Fuller, T. (2007b). Meet the eccentric Thai minister who banned YouTube. The International Herald Tribune. Available at: http://www.iht.com/articles/ 2007/06/11/asia/thai.1-72949.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Gomez, J. (2004). Dumbing Down Democracy:Trends in Internet Regulation, Surveillance and Control in Asia. AsiaRights, (1). Available at: http:// rspas.anu.edu.au/asiarightsjournal/Gomez.pdf. Human Rights Watch. (2007). Thailand: Military-Backed Government Censors Internet. Available at: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/23/ thaila15996.htm [Accessed August 16, 2008]. iwat. (2007). newgrounds.com is blocked. Blognone. Available at: http:// www.blognone.com/node/4489 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Jackson, P. (2007). Sensitive heads of state. BBC. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/in_depth/6498297.stm [Accessed August 22, 2008]. Jackson, S. (2007). Thai ban on YouTube website ends. BBC. Available at: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6972311.stm [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Janssen, P. (2007). Referendum leaves Thailand deeply divided. Bangkok Post. Available at: http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php? id=120998 [Accessed August 22, 2008]. Jardin, X. (2007a). CNN censored inside Thailand, on-air and online. Boing Boing. Available at: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/15/cnn-censoredinside-.html [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Jardin, X. (2007b). YouTube blocked in Thailand now? Boing Boing. Available at: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/03/09/youtube-blocked-in-t.html [Accessed 74

August 16, 2008]. Jaschik, S. (2006). The King and Yale University Press. Inside Higher Ed. Available at: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/02/03/thai [Accessed August 14, 2008]. Kate, DT. (2007a). Asia Sentinel - Could Thailand be Getting Ready to Repeat History? Asia Sentinel. Available at: http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=439&Itemid=31 [Accessed August 12, 2008]. Kate, DT. (2007b). Asia Sentinel - Party at Prem’s. Asia Sentinel. Available at: http:// www.asiasentinel.com/index.php? Itemid=31&id=594&option=com_content&task=view [Accessed August 12, 2008]. Kate, DT. (2008). Asia Sentinel - Worries About Thailand’s Invisible Hand. Asia Sentinel. Available at: http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php? Itemid=31&id=969&option=com_content&task=view [Accessed August 12, 2008]. Kazmin , A. (2007). FT.com / World - Mocking video removed from YouTube. FT.com. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f98243c2-e272-11dba1c9-000b5df10621.html?nclick_check=1 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Khanthong, T. (2007). Disrespect for monarchy a direct attack on heart of nation. The Nation. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/04/06/opinion/ opinion_30031242.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Koanantakool, T. (2007a). A brief history of ICT in Thailand. Bangkok Post. Available at: http://www.bangkokpost.com/20th_database/ 07Feb2007_data00.php [Accessed August 13, 2008]. Koanantakool, T. (2007b). Important Internet Statistics of Thailand. Available at: 75

http://internet.nectec.or.th/document/pdf/ 20070824_Important_Intenet_Statistics_of_Thailand.pdf [Accessed August 13, 2008]. Korman, R. (2007). Thailand lifts YouTube blockade. ZDNet. Available at: http:// government.zdnet.com/?p=3261 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Lessig, L. (2006). Code version 2.0 2nd ed., Park Avenue South, New York: Basic Books. Available at: http://codev2.cc/. Liow, JC. (2004). The Security Situation in Southern Thailand: Toward an Understanding of Domestic and International Dimensions . Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 27(6), 531-548. McGeown, K. (2006). Thai king remains centre stage. BBC. Available at: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5367936.stm [Accessed August 12, 2008]. Morris, R. (2006). Website Censorship in Thailand, 2B Research and Analysis. Available at: http://www.angkor.com/2braa/Website-censorship-inThailand.pdf [Accessed August 15, 2008]. narok119. (2007). hi-thaksin says ICT is lair. Blognone. Available at: http:// www.blognone.com/node/4278 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. National Statistic Office of Thailand. (2002). Population by religion, sex, area and region. Available at: http://web.nso.go.th/eng/en/pop2000/table/eadv_tab3.pdf [Accessed August 11, 2008]. NECTEC. (2008). Internet Users and Statistics in Thailand. Internet Information Research and Services. Available at: http://internet.nectec.or.th/webstats/ internetuser.iir?Sec=internetuser [Accessed August 13, 2008]. OKNation. (2008). oknation.net Citizen Reporter. Available at: http://oknation.net/ 76

blog/index.php [Accessed August 13, 2008]. OpenNet Initiative. (2007). Country Overview - Thailand, Available at: http:// opennet.net/sites/opennet.net/files/thailand.pdf. Palasri, S, Huter, S & Wenzel , Z. (1999). The History of the Internet in Thailand, State of Oregon: University of Oregon Books. Available at: http:// www.nsrc.org/case-studies/thailand/english/index.html. Pantip.com. (2007). X5208233: Can not access to YouTube? Pantip.com. Available at: http://www.pantip.com/cafe/wahkor/topic/X5208233/X5208233.html [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Perlez, J. (2006). A Banned Book Challenges Saintly Image of Thai King. The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/world/asia/ 25thailand.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin [Accessed August 13, 2008]. Pinijparakarn, S. (2006). Anti-graft website shut down after 19 days. The Nation. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/2006/01/30/national/index.php? news=national_19781668.html [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Pinijparakarn, S. (2007). Govt losing Internet 'PR war' to opponents. The Nation. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/04/10/headlines/ headlines_30031545.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Poakpong. (2007). Can't access Wordpress.com from TOT. Blognone. Available at: http://www.blognone.com/node/4174 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Pongsawat, P. (2002). Virtual Democracy in Thailand: Information Technology, Internet Political Message Board, and the Politics of Representation in Thailand after 1992. Journal of Social Sciences-Chulalongkorn University Faculty of Political Science, 33(1), 141-166. Pongsudhirak, T. (2006). Singapore's troubled Shin Corp deal. Asia Times Online. 77

Available at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HL13Ae01.html [Accessed August 22, 2008]. Pongwanan, P. (2008a). Fah Diew Kan website shut down; lèse majesté alleged . Prachatai. Available at: http://www.prachatai.com/english/news.php?id=464 [Accessed August 17, 2008]. Pongwanan, P. (2008b). ICT to ‘hack & crack' foreign websites offensive to Thai supreme institution. Prachatai. Available at: http://www.prachatai.com/ english/news.php?id=565 [Accessed August 17, 2008]. Pongwanan, P. (2008c). Policeman Submit More Evidence for Lèse Majesté Charge against BBC Reporter: ‘This is a Conspiracy'. Prachatai. Available at: http:// www.prachatai.com/english/news.php?id=602 [Accessed August 17, 2008]. Prachatai. (2006). Draft of Cyber Crim Law Under Coup Government. Available at: http://www.prachatai.com/05web/th/home/page2.php? mod=mod_ptcms&ContentID=6018&SystemModuleKey=HilightNews&Syst em_Session_Language=Thai [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Prachatai. (2007). Chulabook bans Giles' book since it cites TKNS. Available at: http://www.prachatai.com/05web/th/home/page2.php? mod=mod_ptcms&ID=6938&Key=HilightNews [Accessed August 13, 2008]. Prachatai. (2008a). Transcript of Minister of ICT's interview. Prachatai. Available at: http://www.prachatai.com/05web/th/home/12178 [Accessed August 17, 2008]. Prachatai. (2008b). ICT and TOT deny blocking Prachatai, saying possibly a technical error. Available at: http://www.prachatai.com/english/news.php? id=637ICT [Accessed August 17, 2008]. Pratuangkrai, P & Khaengkhan, B. (2007). Bangkok's Independent Newspaper. 78

Available at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/09/24/headlines/ headlines_30049999.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Privacy International. (2003). Silenced - Thailand. Privacy International. Available at: http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml? cmd[347]=x-347-103785 [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Rananand, PR. (2005). Regulation of Internet Content in Thailand. Available at: http://www.knit.or.th/fta/internet-regulation.pdf [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Reporters Without Borders. (2004). Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index - 2004. Available at: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11715 [Accessed August 20, 2008]. Reporters Without Borders. (2006). List of the 13 Internet enemies. Available at: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19603 [Accessed May 26, 2008]. Reporters Without Borders. (2007a). Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index - 2007. Available at: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24025 [Accessed August 20, 2008]. Reporters Without Borders. (2007b). Charges dropped against blogger who was arrested under new cyber-crime law. Available at: http://www.rsf.org/ article.php3?id_article=23533 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Rojanaphruk, P. (2008). Lese Majeste Law and Mainstream Newspapers’ SelfCensorship: The Upward Spiral Effect and its Reaction. In Bangkok, Thailand: The Thai Khadi Research Institute/Thammasat University. Available at: http://www.prachatai.com/05web/upload/HilightNews/ document/pravit.pdf. Roongroj, P. (2008). Internet Connectivity in Thailand (August 2008). Available at: http://internet.nectec.or.th/internetmap/view.php? filename=inetmap082008.gif [Accessed August 13, 2008]. 79

Ruangdit, P & Chongfuengparinya, N. (2007). Thai ICT Minister challenges 'bully' Google. ZDNet Asia. Available at: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/ 0,39044246,62010660,00.htm [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Sambandaraksa, D. (2008). 1,893 sites now blocked. Bangkok Post. Available at: http://facthai.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/mict-admits-blocking-1893websites-bangkok-post/ [Accessed August 17, 2008]. Siriyuvasak, U. (2007). New Media for Civil Society and Political Censorship in Thailand . AsiaRights, (8). Available at: http://rspas.anu.edu.au/ asiarightsjournal/Issue%20Eight_Siriyuvasak.htm. Thaiall.com. (2007). Block geocities.com. Thaiall.com. Available at: http:// www.perlphpasp.com/article/geoblocked.htm [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Thairath. (2006). NLA passes the first draft of Cyber Crime Bill. Thairath. Available at: http://www.thairath.co.th/online.php? section=newsthairathonline&content=26726 [Accessed August 15, 2008]. The Economist. (2008). Thailand’s lèse-majesté law: No disrespect. The Economist. Available at: http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm? story_id=11920909 [Accessed August 15, 2008]. The Globe and Mail. (2008). Ousted Thai prime minister returns to exile in London. Available at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC. 20080812.WORLDREPORT12-2/TPStory/TPInternational/Europe/ [Accessed August 12, 2008]. The International Herald Tribune. (2007). Police say bomb at soccer match in southern Thailand wounds 14 officers. The International Herald Tribune. Available at: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/14/asia/AS-GENThailand-Southern-Violence.php [Accessed August 13, 2008]. 80

The Nation. (2006a). HM the King's April 26 speeches (unofficial translation). The Nation. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/2006/04/27/headlines/ headlines_30002592.php [Accessed August 12, 2008]. The Nation. (2006b). 19sep.org shut down. The Nation. Available at: http:// www.nationmultimedia.com/option/print.php?newsid=30014358 [Accessed August 15, 2008]. The Nation. (2006c). Draft charter criticised. The Nation. Available at: http:// nationmultimedia.com/2006/09/28/politics/politics_30014851.php [Accessed August 12, 2008]. The Nation. (2006d). "What Thaksin had done wrong". Available at: http:// nationmultimedia.com/2006/11/22/headlines/headlines_30019578.php [Accessed August 22, 2008]. The Nation. (2006e). ICT asked to block webcam chat-room site, Camfrog . Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/read.php? newsid=30021868 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. The Nation. (2006f). FREEDOM OF SPEECH :Anti-coup website blocked again without notification. The Nation. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/ 2006/12/30/politics/politics_30022916.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. The Nation. (2007a). Pro-Thaksin site is okay: CNS. The Nation. Available at: http:// nationmultimedia.com/2007/03/14/politics/politics_30029254.php [Accessed August 16, 2008]. The Nation. (2007b). Pantip's political page is banned . The Nation. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/ read.php?newsid=30031411 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. The Nation. (2007c). No more website closures by authorities: Sitthichai. The 81

Nation. Available at: http://nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/read.php? newsid=30038960 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. The National Telecommunications Commission. (2006). Types of Business Licensing. Available at: http://eng.ntc.or.th/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=29 [Accessed August 13, 2008]. The National Telecommunications Commission. (2008). Telecom License. Available at: http://www.ntc.or.th/license/index.php?show=all [Accessed August 13, 2008]. The Parliament of Thailand. (2006). HM the King's April 26 speeches (unofficial translation). Available at: http://www.parliament.go.th/news/news_detail.php? prid=2065 [Accessed August 22, 2008]. The Secretariat of the Cabinet. (2008). History of Thai Prime Ministers. Available at: http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/pm_his.htm [Accessed August 22, 2008]. Truehits.net. (2008). Top 100 most visited sites in Thailand. Available at: http:// truehits.net/index_ranking.php [Accessed August 13, 2008]. Vamvanij, S. (2006). Manusaya.com. Sa·ra·son·teh. Available at: http:// sanpaworn.vissaventure.com/thai/267/manusayacom [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Voigt, K. (2007). Internet censorship gathers steam - CNN.com. CNN. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/04/18/online.censorship/index.html [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Walker, A. (2007). Royalist propaganda and policy nonsense. New Mandala. Available at: http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala/2007/11/07/royalistpropaganda-and-policy-nonsense/ [Accessed August 12, 2008]. 82

Warrick-Alexander, J. (2006). Yale Daily News. Available at: http:// www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/16412 [Accessed August 15, 2008]. Watts, J. (2008). Behind the Great Firewall. The Guardian. Available at: http:// www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/09/internet.china [Accessed August 22, 2008]. Wikipedia. (n.d.a). 60th Anniversary Celebrations of Bhumibol Adulyadej's Accession. Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 60th_anniversary_of_the_accession_of_Bhumibol_Adulyadej [Accessed August 12, 2008]. Wikipedia. (n.d.b). Constitution of Thailand. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Constitution_of_Thailand [Accessed August 22, 2008]. Wong-Anan, N. (2007). RPT-UPDATE 1-Thailand blocks YouTube for clip mocking king | Reuters. Reuters. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/ companyNewsAndPR/idUSN0432594820070404?pageNumber=1 [Accessed August 16, 2008]. Zittrain, J. (2003). Internet Points of Control, The Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Available at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2003/ Internet_Points_of_Control.

83

9 Appendix 9.1 Glossary 2006 Coup D'etat A Coup D'etat against Thai Rak Thai government, happens on 19 September 2006. It led by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin. 2007 Computer Crime Act New bill passed on 2007 related to computer crime, traffic logging and internet censorship. 2007 General Election The general election on 23 December 2007 which brought back Thailand to democracy. People's Power Party won this election. Bhumibol Adulyadej The current king of Thailand (as August 2008). He is the ninth king of Chakri Dynasty. CDR's Order Number 5 An order from CDR on 20 September 2006, giving the Ministry of ICT to control the internet. This order was used as the legal foundation for Internet Censorship in Thailand before the 2007 Computer Crime Act. See the translation in Relevant Laws section. Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) Former government corporation on telecommunication. Now it was privatised as government-own CAT Telecom, reported to Ministry of ICT. Council for Democratic Reform (CDR) The shorter name of the Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy. The “under the Constitutional Monarchy” was dropped later in order to remove any suspicions about the role of the monarchy.

84

Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy The official translated name of the military junta who did the Coup D'etat on the night of 19 September 2006. This name is direct translation from Thai name to keep all meaning. From 19 to 30 September 2006, CDR released 37 Orders/ Announcements in total. Council for National Security (CNS) From the 2006 Interim Constitution of Thailand, released on 27 September 2006, Council for Democratic Reform changed its name to Council for National Security. It was defunct after 23 December 2007 general election. Democrat Party The largest opposition party to both Thai Rak Thai and People's Power Party government. Department of Special Investigation (DSI) Government special investigation unit, established on 3 October 2002 under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) Anti-censorship movement group. See http://facthai.wordpress.com Interim Government An interim government, appointed by the CNS, administrate Thailand from September 2006 to December 2007. Surayud Chulanont is the Prime Minister. The cabinet includes Sitthichai Pokai-udom as the Minister of ICT. Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) Minisry of ICT is the ministry-level organisation on Thailand's information and communication policy. National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) The committee on Thailand's telecommunication policy. It is independent from Ministry of ICT. People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) Sondhi Limthongkul's movement against Thai Rak Thai government. 85

People's Power Party (PPP) After Thai Rak Thai party was dissolved, the remaining members moved to this existing party. Samak Sundaravej became the party leader. The party won the 23 December 2007 general election. Prem Tinsulanonda 16th Prime Minister of Thailand and the chief of the Privy Councilor. He was cited as the mastermind of the Coup D'etat. He is the symbol of Thailand's conservative force. Samak Sundaravej 25th and current Prime Minister of Thailand (as August, 2008). He is experienced politician, former governor of Bangkok and the leader of People's Power Party. He has been considered as the nominee of Thaksin Shinawatra, which sometimes he admitted. Shin Corporation Thaksin's company. It is the largest mobile carrier in Thailand. Sitthichai Pokai-udom The Minister of ICT in the Surayud's interim government appointed by the CNS. He is in charge for internet censorship in that period. He is known in the western world as 'the man who banned YouTube.' Sondhi Limthongkul A media tycoon who owns Manager newspaper, ASTV cable tv and Manager.co.th site. He is one of five leaders of the People's Alliance for Democracy. Sonthi Boonyaratglin The Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Army at the time of 2006 Coup D'etat and also the leader of the Coup. After the Coup, he was the head of the Council for National Security (CNS) who ruled the country. Now he is retired from the Army. Note: Sonthi Boonyaratglin and Sondhi Limthongkul's first name are the same in Thai language. The difference of English spelling is due to the name owner. 86

Surayud Chulanont 24th Prime Minister of Thailand. He is the Prime Minister of the interim government appointed by the Coup. He was the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Army before Sonthi Boonyaratglin. After retiring, he was appointed by the king to be a Privy Councilor before accepting the Prime Minister post. Temasek Holdings Singapore's sovereign wealth fund that bought the 1.88 billion US dollar stakes in Shin Corporation from Thaksin's family in January 2006. Thaksin Shinawatra 23rd Prime Minister of Thailand and the leader of Thai Rak Thai Party. His government was taken down by the Council for Democratic Reform on 2006 Coup D'etat. After the Coup, he was exiled in foreign countries and had some businesses (e.g. the buyout for Manchester City Football Club in the UK). He returned to Thailand in February 2007. As August 2008, he is seeking for asylum in the UK. Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) Thaksin's Party. It won the 2001 general election and 2005 general election. After 2006 Coup D'etat, the party was dissolved by the order of the Constitutional Tribunal for violation of election laws. 111 members of the party, including Thaksin Shinawatra, were barred from participating in politics for a five-year period. The remaining members moved to People's Power Party.

87

9.2 Relevant Laws 9.2.1 CDR's Order Number 5 In Thai script:

ประกาศ คณะปฏิรูปการปกครองในระบอบประชาธิปไตย อันมีพระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุข ฉบับที่ ๕ เรื่อง: ให้กระทรวงเทคโนโลยีสารสนเทศและการสื่อสาร ควบคุมการเผยแพร่ข้อมูลข่าวสารระบบเทคโนโลยี สารสนเทศ ตามที่คณะปฏิรูปการปกครองในระบอบประชาธิปไตย อันมีพระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุข ได้ทำการยึด อำนาจการปกครองแล้วนั้น จึงให้กระทรวงเทคโนโลยีสารสนเทศและการสื่อสาร ดำเนินการควบคุม ยับยั้ง สกัดกั้น และทำลาย การเผยแพร่ข้อมูลข่าวสารในระบบสารสนเทศ ผ่านระบบเครือข่ายการสื่อสารทั้งปวง ที่มี บทความ ข้อความ คำพูด หรืออื่นใด อันอาจส่งผลกระทบต่อการปฎิรูปการปกครองระบอบประชาธิปไตย อันมี พระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุข ตามที่ คณะปฏิรูปการปกครองในระบอบประชาธิปไตย อันมีพระมหากษัตริย์ ทรงเป็นประมุข ได้มีประกาศไว้ในเบื้องต้นแล้ว สั่ง ณ วันที่ ๒๐ กันยายน พุทธศักราช ๒๕๔๙ Source: http://th.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%B8%9B %E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B0%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A8_ %E0%B8%84%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%84._%E0%B8%89%E0%B8%9A %E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%B5%E0%B9%88_%E0%B9%95

Unofficial English translated version: Order from Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy, Number 5 Subject: Ministry of ICT to control the information flow within information system Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy now seized the power of administration. It order the Ministry of ICT to to restrict, control, stop or destroy information within any given communication network deemed to affect the constitutional monarchy. Ordered at 20 September 2006 88

9.2.2 2007 Computer Crime Act The official (Thai language) 2007 Computer Crime Act is available on Royal Thai Gazette web site: http://www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/DATA/PDF/2550/A/027/4.PDF The censorship is mentioned in Section 20. Unofficial translation:

Article 20: If the crime from this Act will distribute the computer data which possibly impact the national security defined by the Criminal Law Part 2 Title 1 or Title 1/1 or possibly impact the peace or tradition of the citizen, authorized officials could file the request with evidences to the court for blocking that computer data. If the court agree on blocking that data, the officials can do it by themselves or order the service providers to do so.

9.3 Survey Questions The survey questions are in both language, English and Thai. Both versions have the same set of questions. Survey Questions for Dissertation on “Internet Censorship in Thailand” Your participation in this survey is entirely voluntary. All personal information will be anonymized before being analyzed. There are 14 questions in total. All the questions are optional. This research project is a partial requirement of a Masters degree in Information Management at the University of Sheffield. 1. Please briefly introduce yourself. Gender, age, and job title. 2. How long has you been used internet? What is the level of usage for work (e.g. indispensable, a lot, or just some) 3. In recent years period, do you get any affect from internet censorship in Thailand? If yes, where? (home/work/university/or your own website was banned) 4. Did you try anything to avoid/get through the censorship mechanic? (e.g. proxy, special software, discuss this issue on public forum) 5. What is your opinion on internet censorship? (agree, partially agree, disagree) What is the reason? 89

6. If answer of #5 is partially agree, which topics that should be censored? For example: ◦ National security, terrorist, separatist ◦ Religion/culture ◦ Royal institution ◦ Politics ◦ Pornography ◦ Child pornography ◦ Other... (please suggest) 7. If answer of #5 is partially agree, which is the appropriate level of censorship? can choose more than one. ◦ Government/Ministry policy ◦ Law ◦ International Gateway ◦ ISP ◦ Organizational (company, university, school) ◦ PC (e.g. parental control in software) ◦ Other... (please suggest) 8. Do you think internet censorship is difference from other media censorship? (e.g. TV, books, newspaper, film) 9. What is your opinion on internet censorship situation after 2006 Coup d'etat? 10. As your current knowledge/awareness, what is the level of internet censorship in Thailand compared to other countries? 11. What is your opinion on internet censorship issue in Thailand's 2007 Computer Crime Act? 12. Do you know any anti-censorship movement in Thailand? What is your opinion on them? 13. What is your opinion on internet censorship in the future? More, less or the same? 14. Any other comment/remark on internet censorship in Thailand? 90

9.4 Images Screenshot of the blocked site from the Ministry of ICT. (image from https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Image:Thailand-internet-redirect.jpg)

Screenshot of the blocked site from TOT, one of Thai ISPs. (image from http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ prachatai_tot.jpg)

91

Screenshot of the blocked site from KSC, one of Thai ISPs. (image from http://2bangkok.com/blocked.shtml)

92