Bangkok: Following the remarks of Mrs. Ranongrak Suwanchawee, Minister of ICT, regarding plans to spend over 80 million Baht budget for technical apparatus to censor (block) lese majeste websites, as well as plans to expedite legal amendments to give ICT Ministry more carte-blanche powers, members of Thai Netizen Network (TNN) are voicing their concerns regarding such plans. TNN demands that the government allow all stakeholders to participate in a discussion in order to reach a democratic solution to this problem, instead of adopting a warcry stance that is sure to create the atmosphere of undue fear in cyberspace, which could lead to its plans being backfired.

Sarinee Achavanuntakul, independent academic and blogger (www.fringer.org) and members of TNN, questions ICT Ministry's plans. In her view, the government should focus on creating publicly acceptable criteria for Internet regulation, as well as increase clarity and transparency in its enforcement of Computer Crime Act, instead of adopting measures that infringe upon citizens' freedom of speech in a black-or-white and non-transparent manner without respect to the people's judgment. For example, the government should consult all stakeholders to reach an agreement on what exactly constitutes "lese majeste," what characterizes websites that are considered "lese majeste," and what the relevant government officials should do to handle these situations in ways that can assure other stakeholders that their personal rights will not be infringed upon.

"With regards to web censorship, I believe the government should seek court order in every case in accordance with international standards. In addition, the government should be aware that web censorship is a very ineffective and inefficient method that inevitably will lead to a waste of government resources, because people can always use proxies and other circumvention methods. And in fact, such inefficiency is indicative of the fact that trying to access information is part of the 'nature' of Internet users which government cannot really block," Sarinee says.

Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of online news website www.prachatai.com and TNN's member, has this to say about the case of so-called "lese majeste websites":
"We have to reach a new understanding of the term "lese majeste websites" that is currently being used, because we cannot determine whether these websites really committed lese majeste simply by looking at URLs that ICT Ministry has asked the court's permission to block. For example, it may turn out that Youtube (whose servers are located in many countries) is the website that ICT asked to block the most. Would we then call Youtube a "lese majeste website"? So the government should understand that a better way to root out lese majeste content is changing the focus to solve the cause of the problem instead of creating the atmosphere of fear and suspicion by block websites. Because this kind of measure will only worsen the atmosphere, and therefore may cause more harm to the monarchy instead of protecting the monarchy as intended."

In terms of what should be the government's priority, Chiranuch, speaking as TNN's representative, says "the government should open up public discussion space to reach a mutual understanding with all stakeholders, instead of using means that threaten or announcing war. ICT Ministry could host such a discussion forum, which should be a more constructive way of solving this problem instead of spending 80 million Baht on war room."

Sarinee adds that part of TNN's action plan is to discuss such matters with relevant government agencies. This could be a good time to begin discussing proper rules for police enforcement of Computer Crime Act to seek more clarity in this matter.

"Blocking content on over 2,000 web pages is just preventing Thai residents to access them while others worldwide still can. This method therefore cannot truly protect the monarchy's honors," Chiranuch concludes.

Thai Netizen Network will submit protest letter and recommendations to the Prime Minister and ICT Ministry in the near future, especially on the issue of demanding participation of Internet users in amending the Computer Crime Act.
 

Thai Netizen Network

www.thainetizen.org

January 8, 2009