Wednesday, May 14, 2008

YouTube has been blocked in Thailand as of today!

As of today (May 14th, 2008), access in Thailand to the whole of the YouTube site has been blocked. It was working fine yesterday. I know this because I currently live in Thailand, and I visit YouTube most days to see what's new in there. This is the message that appears in my web browser when I try to access www.youtube.com - "Sorry, the web site you are accessing has been blocked by the request of The Communication Authority of Thailand. For more information please contact: Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Building 9, TOT PCL Chaeng Wattana Rd. Laksi Bangkok 10210. Tel. 0-2505-7147, 0-2568-2498".

Upon encountering the block I searched the web for news on the subject, but could find nothing relevant. The newest article I could find was from April 4th, 2007, over one year ago, so I have no idea what is going on with it at the moment.

The aforementioned year-old article (which you can read here on the BBC news site) relates to when access to YouTube was blocked in Thailand last year due to a US-based user uploading a video that was highly insulting to the King of Thailand (Thai people love their King, and insulting him is absolutely unacceptable to them, not to mention illegal). I was of the understanding that following that episode, YouTube had agreed to work with the Thai government to ensure there were no similar problems in the future. So I wonder what's happened this time?

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