Seven major Thai online service providers will soon start working with the Thai government to create new guidelines for tackling the spread of illegal content on the web. But just who those new guidelines will affect and what specific content they’ll restrict isn’t yet clear.
The group said they would look at regulating content related to pornography, terrorism, drugs, spam, phishing and copyright infringement.
Thailand already blocks some pornography sites as well as some political pages.
When it comes to intellectual property, the Land of Smiles is a well-known Wild West for online pirates. Torrentors take note you may want to invest in a VPN if you have not already.
A government agency, the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA), will work with the PKI Association, Thailand Information Security Association, Internet Foundation for the Development of Thailand, Thailand ISP Association, Thai e-Commerce Association, Google Asia Pacific and eBay to create the country’s first transparent, though self-enforced, code of conduct for stemming illegal content on the web.
Providers would be responsible for removing illegal content within 15 days after the code of conduct is implemented.
Currently, providers are not required to remove illegal content from websites within a designated time limit.
In the past four years, at least 50,000 Thai URLs or web addresses, were required to remove illegal content, mostly relating to pornography or content that posed a risk to national security.
Srida Tanta-atipanid, manager of Internet Foundation for the Development of Thailand, said the foundation had received around 300 requests from overseas organizations asking it to remove child pornography hosted on Thai websites over the past three years, the Bangkok Post reported.
