Online censorship pressure

A couple of days ago PPT posted on the military regime pressuring Google to censor without a court order. When we look back at that post we realize that we neglected to mention that the main area of concern was posts and videos about the monarchy. It goes without saying….

Reuters reports that the military government is also trying to get more censorship out of Facebook and Line. The story is taken up at the Bangkok Post, saying that “[e]xecutives of the giant social media outlets … have been called to a meeting by the national reform assembly over monitoring and removing content considered a security threat to Thailand.” Yes, the monarchy.

While Reuters says the committee now says it is emphasizing content for which there is a court order, this is spin and the leaked document about Google made this clear. Nothing like trying to clean up after you’ve made a mess.

Arthit Suriyawongkul, a coordinator of the Thai Netizens Network advocacy group, says this attempt to have Google act is against Thai law: “Under the Computer Crime Act, if internet users post content suspected of violating the law, any accusations against them must be verified by a court before action is taken…”.

It seems that Thailand’s lawmakers don’t care too much about following the law.