Thais work around YouTube ban

Bangkok (THAILAND) – Thais facing YouTube withdrawal symptoms are finding creative ways of accessing their Numa Numa and “Ask a Ninja” videos. At major shopping centers, members of the Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) group are distributing CDs containing proxy software that gets around the block. The group says that thousands of websites, in addition to YouTube, have been blocked.

Back on April 4th, YouTube was blocked by Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Telecommunications (MICT) after a 44-second video mocking King Bhumibol Adulyadej appeared on the popular video sharing site. The clip placed pictures of feet stomping over a portrait of the king, something that is considered very offensive in Thailand because the head is considered to be a sacred part of the body. YouTube, owned by Google, initially refused to take down the video, but eliminated the clips a few days later.

Despite the video take downs, as of June 18th, the ban of YouTube is still in effect and Internet users in Thailand will either get a page not found error or will be redirected to a ban notification website. In-country pings to YouTube’s main IP address of 208.65.153.253 come back as “Request timed out”, but pings from outside of Thailand return normally. 

Sitthichai Pokaiyaudom, head of the MICT, has said that the government only blocks a few dozen websites, but according to FACT member Matthew Hunt more than 11,000 websites have been blocked since January 2004.

FACT is giving away a CD called “Beat the Censor’s Unlock ICT !” that will supposedly get around the ban. The CD contains proxy software that effectively bounces the user through a middle-man website to get to other sites. FACT members have been seen distributing the CDs near Bangkok’s Panthip Plaza, one of the city’s main computer shopping markets.

Back in September 19, 2006 General Sonthi Boonyaratglin lead a bloodless coup against then Prime Minister Thaskin Shinawatra. Democratically-elected Shinawatra fled the country and has been trying to organize a comeback through the almost daily anti-coup protests around Bangkok. The ban on YouTube conveniently also blocks almost all protest videos from appearing online, something the current government says is just pure coincidence.