Thailand joins Asian efforts to control Internet

February 16, 1998
Web posted at: 4:09 p.m. EST (2109 GMT)

From Bangkok Bureau Chief Tom Mintier

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Bangkok's Assumption University is a prime example of the Internet's growing popularity in Asia. Here, it is a basic part of each student's life, requiring an entire room filled with the latest high-tech equipment to fulfill thousands of connections to the World Wide Web each hour.

But even as Internet usage at this Thai university booms, Assumption has become involved in its government's bid to regulate the Internet.

Thailand's Internet law is the latest in a series of Asian efforts to control content, which have met with varying degrees of success.

China's government controls the computers that route the country's Internet traffic, prohibiting access to certain controversial sites.

Wired world 2 min. 53 sec. VXtreme video

In Singapore, the government also has sought to control content and bar youngsters from sites deemed inappropriate for them.

Now Thailand is in the process of developing Internet controls. When the first draft of its new Internet law, which included criminal penalties for some online actions, was posted by Assumption University for a critique from Internet users, it drew negative reaction almost immediately.

Jamie Zellerbach, a systems operator, runs a non-profit bulletin board in Bangkok for computer users. He called the first version "draconian."

Jamie Zellerbach on promoting the internet....
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"It's what everybody said," Zellerbach said. "It's 'you shall not,' 'thou shall not.' It was worse than the Ten Commandments."

Srisakdi Charmonman, Assumption's vice president of planning and development, defended the earlier versions. "A draft is just a draft. We put the draft up so people could share the ideas, can propose change. We made six changes already," he said.

Five drafts later, the attempts to control content mostly have been scrapped. Now, the Internet law is being offered as more of an "Internet promotion."

"We want the Internet in Thailand to be ... like a public utility," Charmonman said. "If you have electricity, if you have telephone, anywhere in Thailand you should have the Internet."

But Zellerbach said that controlling Internet content by calling it a promotion is wrong. "If you are going to promote (usage of the Internet), get out there and do it," he said. "Get out to the provinces, teach people how to use computers."

Zellerbach has already done some promoting himself. He and a few of his friends donated and set up computer equipment for a school for the handicapped in Pattaya, Thailand.

But in most rural schools, there are no computers. In some, even if they had the equipment, the schools have no electricity to run them. And most teachers have never laid hands on a computer, so teaching children how to use them would be nearly impossible.

This, in spite of the fact that computer production is a significant part of the Thai economy. Asian factories are manufacturing most of the computers around the world. Yet the bulk of their production is destined for other countries. Most Asians, Thais included, cannot afford to buy their handiwork.

Thus, of the 60 million people living in Thailand today, less than half a million are hooked up to the Internet. The new law, if and when it is passed, may change that, if promotion and not protection is indeed the intent.

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