Thaksin Offer: Surf Net And Get Paid

[george]

Thaksin offer: Surf Net and get paid

Thai government will hire students on vacation to help in crackdown on illegal websites

BANGKOK: Always one for innovation, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has ordered government ministries to farm out their backlog of work to students - starting with a squad of students on vacation surfing the Internet for illegal sites and getting paid for it.

'This programme will not be giving away money to students by hiring them to sit idle,' Mr Thaksin said. 'I want them to help clear the backlog.'

First in the firing line will be websites offering pornography, illegal products including drugs and regulated pharmaceuticals, or prostitution.

Mr Thaksin said these sites would be 'shut down'.

An engineering student told The Sunday Times: 'He can certainly shut down a site hosted in Thailand, but he can't shut down a site which is run from outside the country. The government could find some way of blocking access to those.'

The Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Ministry said it already had a system in place for monitoring Internet content and would hire students to be part of the team.

But Mr Thaksin wants the scheme to go beyond the ministry, and has asked the authorities to look into giving tax breaks to companies which hire students during the school break.

He has also asked the Labour Ministry to facilitate vacation jobs in other ministries for students.

Hiring students would ease the financial burden of parents as well as provide work experience to youths, he said.

The idea was first mooted at the Thailand Animation and Multimedia show, held earlier this month, which highlighted the substantial role played by young people in the growing and lucrative field of multimedia.

One 11-year-old boy attending the event had even written his own animations after learning programming techniques from the Internet.

The decision to target offensive Internet sites follows the discovery last month of a pornographic site operated by a UK-based British woman of Thai origin.

In the website, she called Bangkok a 'city of sex' and had a Thai flag posted on it.

Mr Thaksin was furious and ordered charges to be filed in Britain against the woman - whose name has not been released - for insulting the country under Thailand's national flag and criminal laws.

Meanwhile, the ICT Ministry is taking the emphasis on youth seriously enough to build a team of young 'e-consultants' to advise it on developing services for young people.

ICT Minister Suraphong Suebwonglee said members of the team will offer their opinions on the ICT needs of the nation's young people.

He hoped that the 'e-youth' programme would also see the development of greater communication between urban and rural young people.

--Agencies 2004-01-18