Thailand's internet ‘not free’ under military rule, says Freedom House

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Thailand's internet ‘not free’ under military rule, says Freedom House

BANGKOK:-- Thailand's internet has received a "not free" status in rankings published yesterday by Freedom House, a US-based public organization that analyzes the state of freedom of expression around the world.

The military's acts of summoning people for interrogation and the draft of a single gateway means Thailand’s score of 63 is in the same range as Myanmar (63) and Russia (62).

The score is based on a set of methodology questions developed in consultation with international experts to capture the vast array of relevant issues that enable internet freedom such as banning access to particular websites and communication apps.

Full story: http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2015/10/29/thailands-internet-not-free-under-military-rule-says-freedom-house

Read the full report from Freedom House here

-- Coconuts Bangkok 2015-10-29

RELATED: Freedom House says Thailand’s political rights and civil liberties ratings decline

[Jingthing]

Ouch.

[pinkpanther99]

Damn right it's not free.

1500 baht per month i hand over to 3BB for a "high speed" Internet service which is getting considerably slower by the day.

Edited October 29, 2015 by pinkpanther99

[ukrules]

Damn right it's not free.

1500 baht per month i hand over to 3BB for a "high speed" Internet service which is getting considerably slower by the day.

I only pay about 800 to 3BB for mine

[2fishin2]

You don't understand Thailand....

[lostinisaan]

The military's acts of summoning people for interrogation and the draft of a single gateway means Thailand’s score of 63 is in the same range as Myanmar (63) and Russia (62)

I haven't read anything that comes even close to this sentence in the last 55 years.

Even Jeffrey Damer seems to be an innocent guy after reading this.

Edited October 29, 2015 by lostinisaan

[rkidlad]

Damn right it's not free.

1500 baht per month i hand over to 3BB for a "high speed" Internet service which is getting considerably slower by the day.

I thought it was just me. My 3BB internet has been funny over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes it's the usual speed, but more often now it's lagging.

[Hawk]

The ratings will decline even further next year as the army try desperately to muzzle the masses. At present the general public are losing patience with this government, most Thais now have no respect for the PM and his cohorts. Now waiting for the pot to boil over, and it will, patience has its limits.

[Joe Brennan]

The ratings will decline even further next year as the army try desperately to muzzle the masses. At present the general public are losing patience with this government, most Thais now have no respect for the PM and his cohorts. Now waiting for the pot to boil over, and it will, patience has its limits.

Seems like a reasonable interpretation of what is happening as we speak...

[elgordo38]

Damn right it's not free.

1500 baht per month i hand over to 3BB for a "high speed" Internet service which is getting considerably slower by the day.

I thought it was just me. My 3BB internet has been funny over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes it's the usual speed, but more often now it's lagging.

I have noticed the same thing. The lagging part seems to be longer than the usual speed part.

[Eddy B]

To be honest 3BB has been <deleted> for the last few months. They have even been disconnecting my line with the message "go to your nearest 3BB shop to pay your outstanding bill". I could understand this if I was behind with my bills but I am one month paid up ahead. Plus they have cut me off upto 4 days before the actual bill is due.

[bodymassagemyfriend]

Its the lag due to the proxy filtering overhead. Files gets scanned before beeing forwarded by the proxy

[dhream]

To be honest 3BB has been <deleted> for the last few months. They have even been disconnecting my line with the message "go to your nearest 3BB shop to pay your outstanding bill". I could understand this if I was behind with my bills but I am one month paid up ahead. Plus they have cut me off upto 4 days before the actual bill is due.

I just moved from 3BB yesterday.

To SiNet fiber. At around 6pm the line went dead, reset the ussual hardware, no dice.

Called SiNet and spoke to two very fluent English speakers, the initial lady operator, and then a male tech. He heard me out, including the fact that I messed up by asking the install contractor to directly connect my router, rather than the SiNet router, and then realised that it would have been better to use that as a bridge to my router.

He promised to call back and he did. He said the fault was on their end, and that my service might be down all night. But that he would try to get it back by 10pm.

He also said he had opened a ticket to get the contractor to return and install the SiNet router/bridge tomorrow.

By 7.40pm the service was back on, I think I made the right decision for once, In my service provider.

They are not the cheapest around, but sometimes, even in Thailand you get what you pay for.

As a fitting finale, my missus went into 3BB to cancel the old ADSL line, and they said they would let it run till 31st. We quickly set our old ADSL router up again tonight, thinking that SiNet would take at least until tomorrow to fix our service, and guess what? 3BB had already shut us down on their network, say no more...

[speedtripler]

the internet has been laggy for weeks ,even before the gateway news broke

someone is definately monkeying around with the inertnet

this article just proves they are working on restricting more and more content we are

"not allowed" to view ..............

[worgeordie]

"Big Brother" must know everything you do,where you live and coming next,what you are thinking.

regards worgeordie

[rubl]

The ratings will decline even further next year as the army try desperately to muzzle the masses. At present the general public are losing patience with this government, most Thais now have no respect for the PM and his cohorts. Now waiting for the pot to boil over, and it will, patience has its limits.

Seems like a reasonable interpretation of what is happening as we speak...

I'm told that the government is really listening [sic] to all comments and will prepare a statement that they are studying the American cyber security bill CISA which was just accepted in the Senate and that they are tentatively prepared to accept a similar bill.

Edited October 29, 2015 by rubl

[papa al]

Yikes!

papa likes his inter web.

First porn.

What censorship next?

[rubl]

Its the lag due to the proxy filtering overhead. Files gets scanned before beeing forwarded by the proxy

THe relevant department in Thailand is still a bit behind technology and IT wise speaking, certainly compared with the likes of NSA or GCHQ. That's why they want only one gateway. Imagine the 'speed' if there were more gateways

[RubberBroke]

[rubl]

FB_IMG_1441385158612.jpg

Well, that image I could read here in Thailand.

Probably something similar as some youtube clip which you can only watch directly from the site, or some blocking the BBC does.

[rubl]

The ratings will decline even further next year as the army try desperately to muzzle the masses. At present the general public are losing patience with this government, most Thais now have no respect for the PM and his cohorts. Now waiting for the pot to boil over, and it will, patience has its limits.

'are losing', 'most Thai', 'no respect'

Interesting how you state your opinion as if it's fact and obviously clear for all to see.

It would seem that certainly on the Pheu Thai side and their protest armed UDD and of their 'de facto' leader.

[SABloke]

Damn right it's not free.

1500 baht per month i hand over to 3BB for a "high speed" Internet service which is getting considerably slower by the day.

I thought it was just me. My 3BB internet has been funny over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes it's the usual speed, but more often now it's lagging.

I've got a 40 MB true connection...usually really fast and reliable. Over the past 3 weeks I've noticed that at about 10:30pm the speed drops (to about 10) and then will cut out for a few minutes (no yellow triangle and full internet status) after about 5min it's back.It seems as though they're running tests covertly...paranoia from 'single gateway' probably. Anybody else experiencing this?

[Kawapete]

It isn't now and is wasn't before but the internet is slowly doing its job to create more openness simply due to the fact that news - good or bad gets out there very fast.

[MaxLee]

The answer should be simply zero

Edited October 30, 2015 by MaxLee

[jesimps]

The ratings will decline even further next year as the army try desperately to muzzle the masses. At present the general public are losing patience with this government, most Thais now have no respect for the PM and his cohorts. Now waiting for the pot to boil over, and it will, patience has its limits.

'are losing', 'most Thai', 'no respect'

Interesting how you state your opinion as if it's fact and obviously clear for all to see.

It would seem that certainly on the Pheu Thai side and their protest armed UDD and of their 'de facto' leader.

That's four of your posts I've just read on the bounce and they're all "...but but but Thaksin/PTP/USA/NSA/GCHQ" etc etc. It would please me no end if you groupies could comment on what you think of the regime's actions rather than continually harping on about what other people have done both here and elsewhere. I should be grateful if you would tell us, what your opinion is of the internet not being free under the present government of Thailand. Do you think Freedom House is wrong and if so why?

Please remember that everyone who criticises the government's actions isn't a supporter of the PTP/Thaksin/NSA/GCHQ so in a lot of cases you are preaching to the converted. Also remember that two wrongs don't make a right.

[phuketrichard]

wow, total score

worse than Cambodia and same as Myanmar ;-(

[gandalf12]

Damn right it's not free.

1500 baht per month i hand over to 3BB for a "high speed" Internet service which is getting considerably slower by the day.

I thought it was just me. My 3BB internet has been funny over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes it's the usual speed, but more often now it's lagging.

More users on a fixed available bandwidth means less bandwidth and consequently slower for everyone. If anyone wants the calculation for transmission rates let me know and I will post it

Edited October 30, 2015 by gandalf12

[Vandadavid]

This is wrong and it must be stopped

[X pat]

After reading these post,I wonder how many of you have "VPN" installed on your computer,I do and I find that I have a good connection with very little problems.

[Hawk]

The ratings will decline even further next year as the army try desperately to muzzle the masses. At present the general public are losing patience with this government, most Thais now have no respect for the PM and his cohorts. Now waiting for the pot to boil over, and it will, patience has its limits.

'are losing', 'most Thai', 'no respect'

Interesting how you state your opinion as if it's fact and obviously clear for all to see.

It would seem that certainly on the Pheu Thai side and their protest armed UDD and of their 'de facto' leader.

Yes a fact, and its mostly ordinary Thais with no political leanings. Thais are becoming poorer under this government. If you can speak Thai, ask them.