Criteria For Blocking Sites

[crocodilexp]

I think the following discussion is not against ThaiVisa guidelines, but please be careful with replies -- easy to get off track.

I regularly browse digg.com (user-moderated links to articles on various topics), and I'm increasingly finding random innocent websites to be blocked in Thailand.

The last one was mashable.com -- it's a social networking blog, contains no porn, not related to Thai politics, and no technical instructions on defeating censorship (which is illegal in itself).

Does anyone know which process or criteria does Thai government use in blocking sites? Is this public information (it surely should be)? it anything more structured than "Turdsak the censor came across it once while surfing and clicked the "block forever" button"? Is there any way to appeal?

I find it increasingly odd that they block YouTube but not Google itself. Google servers not only index but also host some very objectionable material (in fact, *most* objectionable material -- surely way more than YouTube does... no matter how objectionable is defined). Is there a way for concerned citizens to demand that the gov't block Google, along with MSN Search and Yahoo and similar riff-raff?

BTW, the blocked pages redirect to the green page saying ( Sorry! the web site you are accessing has been blocked by ministry of information and communication technology ) -- note the fine capitalization, in the finest Thai tradition of quality.

[Richard-BKK]

I belief that the main reason for blocking websites was based on how the wind was blowing.

[nikster]

Criteria: "We want to block this now"

No sense, or reason required.

BTW I just read in the BKK post today that "Thailand can be a hub for Web 2.0 applications". Thought I'd share...

[TAWP]

Can you find anyone that even knows what "Web 2.0" means here?

And reason for blocking...can be any reason at all, since it's not transparent. A bad joke, a picture, a poorly worded insult, a user-page with 'inproper' info - you name it.

The number of communitysites that are banned now (or under Thaksin and the TRT-gang) really shows that they have no clue what for instance...community-pages are. Or Web 2.0 for that matter...

Edited August 8, 2007 by TAWP