Despite alarmist news stories and social media posts saying that the government could shut off Thailand’s Facebook access at 10am today if the site didn’t remove 131 urls deemed inappropriate by the government, the site is still accessible in Thailand.
The Thai Internet Service Provider Association (Tispa) announced that the government was pressuring them to shut off all Thailand access to Facebook with a deadline of as early as 10am Tuesday if the social media giant didn’t remove all the urls dictated by officials, reported Bangkok Post.
Apparently, this request was made on Friday afternoon and the social media site seemed to be trying to accommodate the request to remove the urls. Thailand’s criminal court had also signed the request.
By late Friday, Facebook scrubbed 178 of 309 urls listed by the government with 131 still remaining.
As of the end of the workday on Monday, Facebook scrubbed more posts, leaving under 100 still live in Thailand.
The Association stated that it was possible for them to meet the governmental request by shutting off the content delivery network (CDN) that delivers Facebook’s content to you.
However, 10am came and went and the site is still accessible.
No news yet on whether that means Facebook complied or the government backed down.
