Govt starts new campaign to curb websites

Takorn Tantasith, National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) chief: 'The government expects better results'

The national telecom regulator and the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DE) have reiterated their demand that all internet service providers (ISPs) and international internet gateway providers block webpages and content that contain or promote illegal acts or breach Section 112 of the Criminal Code, the lese majeste law.

The agencies also want ISP cooperation to remove illicit video streaming on Facebook and YouTube from their local network server, called a content delivery network (CDN).

Usually, providers such as Facebook and YouTube use them to speed up access to data and reduce demand on bandwidth.

the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) hosted a meeting Tuesday that included ISP and international internet gateway (IIG) providers on how to better tackle illicit content.

"Despite good cooperation between the regulator and the ministry to prevent illicit content on websites over the last two years, the government hopes for more, and expects better result by next month," according to Takorn Tantasith, the NBTC secretary-general.

What is needed, Mr Takorn said, was serious cooperation from ISPs and IIG providers in three areas.

First, they must block webpages with illicit content after receiving a court order or when their own monitoring staff finds such material.

Second, ISPs and IIG providers must immediately inform the NBTC or DE if they cannot block a webpage due to it being encrypted overseas.

The NBTC and DE will ask cooperation from embassies and the Foreign Ministry when necessary in these cases.

Third, DE and NBTC will discuss how to deal with illicit content especially through online video or video streaming stored with ISP servers in country on their CDN or cache server.

An industry source said the NBTC and DE were reiterating their warning to people not to "follow" or correspond with three well-known opponents of the regime, who are now living overseas.

The three men are Thammasat University historian Somsak Jeamteerasakul, Kyoto University associate professor Pavin Chachavalpongpun and online journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall.

All three are listed as wanted for violations of Section 112 of the Criminal Code, the lese majeste law.