

Doing so on a large scale is incredibly offensive and could earn you time in jail.įurthermore, only five years ago, there was a large political upheaval in Thailand whereby the red shirts and yellow shirts engaged in large protests. It simply isn’t culturally acceptable to bad mouth, criticize, or satirize the royal family. Also be aware that the monarchy and royal family are sacred to Thai nationals. In a report conducted in 2010, as many as 110,000 websites were found to be blocked. The political climate plays a large role in the number of websites that are blocked, too.

Political coups pose threats to dissenters, and the southern region of Thailand, near the Malaysian border, has been in a state of chaos for years. The Thai government and infrastructure is known around the world for being rife with corruption, and there have been many protests – some of them violent – as different parties fight for governmental control and influence. And when you take a look at the political climate in Thailand over the last decade, you’ll begin to understand why. Much of the blocked content relates to political, religious, and cultural material that is deemed offensive. VPNs and proxies are commonly used to circumvent the stringent censorship programs implemented by the government. Not surprisingly, Thailand is a country where a large fraction of Internet users employ tools to evade censorship. Not only are there stringent Internet censorship laws in effect, but there are other reasons to encrypt your traffic and mask your IP address. Citizens and travelers alike should take great care to protect themselves online with the use of a VPN tunnel when using the Internet in Thailand. Reporters Without Borders ranked them 130 out of 180 countries around the world in terms of Internet freedoms. Thailand, like many other countries in Southeast Asia, has many Internet restrictions for a variety of reasons.
