[Keith]

Thailand ranks among the worst countries for unfettered access to the Internet. Eleven countries were ranked worst including Thailand, but also Bahrain, Belarus, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Cuba, Burma and Iran. The winner on the opposite end of the spectrum was Estonia, followed by the USA, Germany, Australia and the U.K.

http://www.xbiz.com/news/133467

[icon513]

Is it really a big deal these days, when every twelve year-old in the country knows how to use a proxy?
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[Suky]

Yes, it's really a big deal! Using a proxy is tiresome and time-consuming, especially with the extremely slow internet in Thailand. And I assume that a large majority of over forty year-olds don't know how to use a proxy. Finally, how can you justify the ridiculous internet censorship in Thailand?

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Suky

Yes, it's really a big deal! Using a proxy is tiresome and time-consuming, especially with the extremely slow internet in Thailand. And I assume that a large majority of over forty year-olds don't know how to use a proxy. Finally, how can you justify the ridiculous internet censorship in Thailand?

Well said, though I'm pretty sure our fellow member wasn't justifying the censorship. He just didn't seem to give a damn. I've never lived in a land where censorship was the norm, but it certainly isn't something I'd want to experience first hand if I lived some where.

[icon513]

The internet in Thailand is NOT ridiculously slow. Are you still on dial-up, or what? I get 8MB internationally at home, and I don't even have the top package.

I would never justify internet censorship.

I merely point out that it is silly, meaningless and ultimately futile. You cannot successfully access to knowledge in this way.

I have never met a Thai that doesn't know exactly what all those anti-Royalist websites say. Everybody knows!

It has about as much effect as them blurring out cigarettes and guns on TV...as if everyone doesn't know what's there.

[donatella-t]

The blocking is tedious, but very effective...for the government.

It is just another example of the double standards so happily used here and basically it is a tax by the rich on the poor. The rich can easily bypass the censorship by using proxies and VPNs, they (we) have the money for it.

The poor cannot easily do the same as they access the net mostly from Internet cafes.

There is a real economic cost, so just waving it away as irrelevant is a bit silly. I have to pay for VPN every month. Money that I could have spend for more productive uses. Multiply that by 68 million and just those costs of censorship are huge. That's just the VPN. I wont even start about the countless lost investment opportunities to develop a competitive knowledge based economy.

Further, the blocking slows down the internet tremendously. If you have ever been to a free country you will have experienced that an uncensored slow 2 MB connection is faster than a True Thai 8 MB line. Everything here has to go through government firewalls, so there is a significant slowdown in the overall experience.

I have met plenty of young Thais who are curious about all the naughty information on the ones who lord over them. But most all 20 year old Thais I have met are pretty ignorant about the world and their own country's place in it.

Compared to their brethren I meet abroad even university students often strike me as almost dull. It is because the censoring is so effective as part of the overall goal to keep the people compliant and ignorant.

[icon513]

You have Thai friends who pay for VPN? First in my experience, and I can't imagine why they would.
Posted via Mobile Device

[TouristBangkok]

So, to take it slowly for us computer challenged folks, proxy and VPN are the same thing, is that right?