Thailand: WordPress.com blocked

Thailand blockpage (TOT)
Thailand blockpage (TOT – Telephone Organization of Thailand): This screen shot was taken by Prachatai.com when access to the popular blogging platform WordPress.com has been blocked (August, 22th, 2007):Sorry. TOT Plc., as an organization of Thai people, has restrained the access to this website as it contains content, text, and/or picture that is unappropriated which affects the mind of Thai people all over the country and cannot be accepted.”
(Source: National Blockpages Gallery via Prachatai.com| Global Voices Advocacy Blog)

On August 22th, 2007, access to wordpress.com blogging platform has been blocked by TOT (Telecommunication Authority) preventing Thai Internet users from accessing Thai WordPress and all blogs hosted on wordpress.com. “A notice has been shown when trying to access any WordPress page: “Sorry. TOT Plc., as an organization of Thai people, has restrained the access to this website as it contains content, text, and/or picture that is unappropriated which affects the mind of Thai people all over the country and cannot be accepted.

In a recent update, Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) confirmed that “ until the evening of Friday 24 August, it is still impossible to access WordPress.com from TOT service. The symptom is unpredictable, actually, as sometimes it can be access, but sometimes cannot.

Lats week, on August 17, 2007, the Turkish Fatih Second Civil Court of First Instance blocked access to the entire wordpress.com domain after alleged libel of Turkish Islamic-creationist, Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya.

Update: In this podcast interview, from Thailand, my friend and colleague David Sasaki, Global Voices’ outreach director, talks with four of Thailand’s most popular bloggers about recently passed computer crime act, web censorship and the block of wordpress.com by TOT ISP. Please, listen below to the resulting podcast.
You can also download a PDF version of the Computer Crime Act and read our previous interview with CJ Hinke, FACT founder and coordinator, about the FACT campaign, the filtering situation in Thailand and its implications and consequences as a result of the new cybercrime law.

Download PDF

24 comments

Join the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.