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Growing Cyber Activism in Thailand - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Growing Cyber Activism in
Thailand
Source: Getty
JANJIRA SOMBATPOONSIRI
Article
August 14, 2017
Cyber activism is a useful complement to other forms of activism but not as
a decisive game changer for Thailand’s corrosive political divide.
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This publication is from Carnegie’s Civic Activism Network.
Janjira
Sombatpoonsiri
Janjira Sombatpoonsiri is an
assistant professor on the
Faculty of Political Science at
Thammasat University in
Thailand.
Since the 2014 military coup, Thailand’s authoritarian regime has
tightened its grip on cyberspace, ramping up attempts to control the
internet and online dissent. To defend internet freedom and maintain
pressure, activists have responded with a wave of new campaigns and
tactics. Two recent cases illustrate how, and why, some campaigns
have been successful and others have not. The lessons learned may
offer activists a window into how to maximize their efforts in a highly
polarized environment.1
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NEW CONTROLS, NEW ACTIVISM
After the 2006 military coup, the Thai government enacted
the Computer Crime Act, authorizing state agencies to block any
internet content deemed threatening to national security or
contravening public morals and public order. However, the intensity
of internet control has increased dramatically since the 2014 coup,
which the military undertook to smooth the process of royal secession
and preserve traditional elites’ hold on power.2 The resulting junta
pledged to take necessary measures, especially through
“communication and technological means,” to protect the monarchy
from “malicious intent.” The regime blocked access to hundreds of
websites in the week after the coup. It set up working groups
to monitor and analyze content, identify problematic sites, and
combat online crimes, including the dissemination of illegal
information. This heightened internet control was accompanied by a
dramatic increase in lèse-majesté charges against critics, dissidents,
and ordinary citizens.3 Jail sentences for lèse-majesté
convictionshave become much harsher for noncriminal acts on social
media, such as simply “liking” or sharing Facebook posts or chat
messages construed as critical of the monarchy.
The junta proposed two measures of internet control in recent years
that drew heavy public criticism—the 2015 Single (Internet) Gateway
proposal and the 2016 amendment to the Computer Crime Act. The
former seeks to monitor internet content by reducing the existing
twelve internet gateways to one gateway controlled by the stateowned CAT Telecom. The latter increases sentences against loosely
defined cyber law offenders—aiming to instill fear as well as selfcensorship among the populace.
In response to these efforts, online activism has intensified. By
criminalizing dissidence and exploiting the country’s polarization to
strengthen its own credibility as a force for stability, the military has
made it more difficult for civic and political opposition forces to stage
street protests. Many activists have looked to online activism as an
alternative. Some critics have been skeptical that this offers a way
forward, insisting that the polarization between Thailand’s red shirt
and yellow shirt factions makes it difficult to mobilize online. Yet the
public outcry against the government’s recent attempts to control the
internet invites a more nuanced assessment.
Rollback of the Single Gateway
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When the junta-appointed cabinet proposed the Single Gateway in
May 2015, civil society groups argued it would violate digital rights
and freedom of expression. More importantly, they argued that it
would negatively affect the economy and everyday lives of ordinary
citizens, who increasingly rely on the internet for entertainment,
communication, public transport, and even food delivery. A
representative of Thailand’s Association for Website
Protection publicly expressed concerns that the proposal would result
in slow internet connections and many failed online financial
transactions. In addition, experts warned that the Single
Gateway could lead to connectivity failures, obstructed data flows,
and compromised data confidentiality—and that these problems
would discourage foreign investment in Thailand. For their part,
online gamers and computer “geeks” worried that the policy would
affect the speed of online games and expose personal data. In
an unofficial online poll, more than 90 percent of the five hundred
people who responded disagreed with the introduction of a Single
Gateway.4
Activists employed three tactics to contest the proposal: an online
petition, discussion forums, and clandestine cyber attacks. Civic
groups including the Internet Foundation for the Development of
Thailand and the Thai Netizen Network created an online petition at
Change.org. The page provided information about the effects the
Single Gateway would likely have on netizens. More than 150,000
signatures were gathered. Meanwhile, affected business groups
handed their own petition to the minister of information and
communication technology. Activists created forums to discuss the
matter—despite the government’s criminalization of any criticism.
Prominent forums on Facebook that captured diverse segments of
society included “The Single Gateway: Thailand Internet Firewall,”
“Anti-Single Gateway,” and “OpSingleGateway.” The latter quickly
garnered more than 200,000 followers, who exchanged views on how
the curbing of internet freedom would affect everyday life and how
citizens should resist the measure.
The most innovative countermeasure was a series of Distributed
Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks: an anonymous group, Thailand F5
Cyber Army, declared a cyberwar on the Thai government by
encouraging netizens to visit listed official websites and continuously
press F5 on their keyboards to refresh the pages. The goal was to
overwhelm web servers and cause a temporary collapse of the
websites of the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Information and
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Communication Technology, Government House of Thailand,
National Legislative Assembly, and Internal Security Operations
Command. The group disseminated detailed instructions on the
operation to its anonymous activists. It then demanded that the junta
cancel its Single Gateway proposal.
Most of the attacks were successful. Activists wanted to demonstrate
the government’s technological ineptitudeand its lack of capacity to
manage the Single Gateway. Arthit Suriyawongkul, coordinator of
the Thai Netizen Network, described the campaign as virtual civil
disobedience—an online version of the nonviolent resistance
practiced by civil rights groups in the United States.
In another case, an activist group called Anonymouslaunched
a #BoycottThailand campaign on Twitter and reportedly hacked
government websites, snatched confidential information from official
databases, and shared it online.
Put on the defensive by these multiple campaigns, in October 2015,
the junta scrapped the Single Gatewayproposal.
Expansion of the Computer Crime Act
The regime soon changed its strategy. In April 2016, it proposed a
legal amendment supposedly designed to help develop Thailand’s
digital economy. Under this scheme, the 2007 Computer Crime
Act would be modified to tackle cyber threats to national security.
While the Single Gateway tangibly threatened citizens’ everyday lives,
the junta framed the amendment to its political advantage. The
government presented it as part of a “digital economy” policy package
—giving many citizens the impression that it would limit cyber crimes
—and, under this guise, cloaked increased sentences against online
critics of the government and monarch.
Public debates on the amended law were significantly different from
those on the Single Gateway. The business sector, moving away from
economic arguments, expressed concern over legal sanctions. For
example, Thailand’s biggest internet providers such as True and
DTAC were afraid that the amended law would punish internet
providers for allowing “distorted” information to be shared and
consumed via their servers. This would compel internet providers to
install mechanisms for customer surveillance. Similarly, start-up
entrepreneurs were afraid that the legal framework would enhance
the government’s authority to monitor and sentence them. Some
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feared the law would empower the government to smuggle the Single
Gateway initiative in through the back door. Civil society
organizations such as Amnesty International Thailand, the Thai
Netizen Network, and Privacy International requested that the
government address these infringements on citizens’ rights.
As they did in response to the Single Gateway proposal, netizens
actively used online forums to discuss and debate the potential effects
of the modified cyber law. Rights groups, including iLaw and the Thai
Netizen Network, engaged diverse groups ranging from progressive
online magazines such as The Momentum, Way Magazine, and The
Matter to environmental activists who have experienced local
authorities’ abuse of the Computer Crime Act. The activism campaign
was also prominent on Twitter, where users were encouraged to
include the hashtag Computer Act (#PhoroborComp) in their posts
about the amendment. The hashtag appeared in an
estimated 166,000 tweets in mid-December 2016. Meanwhile, the F5
Cyber Army joined the fray, continuing its DDoS attacks on
government websites, providing manuals for ordinary netizens to
wage the cyberwar, and simultaneously hiding activists’ identities
from the authorities.
Popular disagreement with the revised law was mostly reflected in an
online petition. Online gamers helped spread the notion that the
cyber law would eventually pave the way for the Single Gateway. They
were enraged by the prime minister’s characterization of online
games as “useless.”5 An expert viewed this insult as a turning point
for the anti-cyber law petition that had initially attracted little public
attention. The petition subsequently gained more than 300,000
signatures and was submitted to members of the National Legislative
Assembly.
Despite these efforts, in December 2016, the National Legislative
Assembly passed the amended law by consensus.
EXPLAINING THESE SUCCESSES AND FAILURES
The two civic campaigns yielded different results largely because of
political polarization. Debates around the Single Gateway
concentrated on a significant slowing of internet speed—which would
have had a practical and universal impact. The potential
consequences for the economy and everyday life were obvious. Many
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people who were not politically active and disinclined to define
themselves as the opposition could nevertheless see the downsides to
the junta’s proposal. This was the case for Bangkok’s middle class,
which has broadly backed the army in the belief that it can bring back
order and national unity after a decade of political conflicts and which
constitutes key supporters of the conservative, royalist movement or
yellow shirts.6 Although the middle class’s values are oriented toward
the preservation of order and social harmony, their livelihood and
everyday convenience depends on Thailand’s economic growth and
global connections. The internet has become a basic necessity for
these citizens. They were not bothered much by the Single Gateway’s
threat to privacy rights and freedoms, but they did care about its
potential to damage the economy.
The dynamics changed when the government moved to repackage its
internet control policies using a law-and-order approach. The 2016
amendment to the Computer Crime Act was framed as a response to
the growing problem of cyber insecurity. The government was able
to claim that those not engaged in criminal acts had nothing to fear
from the revised law. A government mouthpiece even went so far as
to blame red shirt leaders for stirring up unjustified public concern
over the new cyber law. Unlike the Single Gateway, there would be no
indiscriminate impact on internet speed. As a result of this legal
framing, activists argued that the cyber law would violate privacy
rights.7 Similarly, the business sector focused on the legal impact the
new law would have on its services. In Thailand, these kinds of rightsbased discourses are often associated with pro-democracy, proWestern, and red shirt sympathizers. This enabled the junta to play
divide and rule and prevent a broad alliance from emerging against
the amendment—opposition to the law was instead dragged into the
red-versus-yellow political struggle. This took some pressure off the
regime, enabling it to gain a consensus.
These examples show that cyber activism is on the rise, but that its
tactics and messaging need to be fine-tuned. The failure described
above illustrates the importance of developing cyber-related
campaigns that connect specific, core issues to those of broader
concern. In the Thai case, the economy and the internet speed, as
shown in the anti-Single Gateway campaign, are examples of these
broad issues. Such campaigns can expand the pool of allies beyond
the usual suspects, inhibiting the government’s polarizing tactics.
Whenever possible, activists should strive to create messages that
resonate across Thailand’s socially and economically diverse
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populations. Recent experience in the country suggests that cyber
activism has some potential to circumvent the restrictions and
rivalries that hinder more traditional political activism but that it can
also be drawn into and even magnify existing societal battles. While
many activists employ rights-based narratives, some segments of
society interpret this language as having underlying political
motivations. A more broad-based coalition has a greater chance of
success in restraining the government’s cyber repression. For now,
cyber activism works as a useful complement to other forms of
activism but not as a decisive game changer for Thailand’s bitter and
corrosive political divide.
Janjira Sombatpoonsiri is an assistant professor on the Faculty of
Political Science at Thammasat University in Thailand. She is a
member of the Carnegie Endowment’s Civic Activism Network.
NOTES
1
This article expands on an earlier published piece by the author; see
Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, “As Thailand Restricts Internet Freedom,
Cyber Activists Work to Keep an Open Web,” The Conversation, July
26, 2017, http://theconversation.com/as-thailand-restricts-internetfreedom-cyber-activists-work-to-keep-an-open-web-80911.
2
King Bhumibol Adulyadej reigned in Thailand for more than
seventy years. He passed away on October 14, 2016, and in December
that year, his son, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, ascended to the throne.
3
See, for example, “March 2016: three court cases of computer crime,
article 44, detention of influential figures and summoning of
villagers” [in Thai], iLaw,April 5,
2016, https://freedom.ilaw.or.th/report/
ค -2559-พพ ก
ค
พ คอ พว อ ฯ์ - ช
44-ค
อ พล
กช ว
ง
ว;
“3 years of the NCPO, standing still” [in Thai], Way Magazine,May
22, 2017, http://waymagazine.org/3rd_ncpo/; Thaveesak
Kerdphoka, “Top five cases of 112 charge in the age of the NCPO” [in
Thai], Prachatai,June 28,
2017, https://www.prachatai.com/journal/2017/06/72156; and
“Court cases against environmental activists” [in
Thai], iLaw,December 31, 2016, https://freedom.ilaw.or.th/blog/
งค - ก คลอ
ว- ว พ คอ พว อ ฯ์ -141.
4
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4
This is an unofficial survey published on a Thai website called
Kapook. Independent and official polls are virtually nonexistent in
Thailand under the current junta. The government often fabricates
polls to solidify its legitimacy to rule. See, for example, David Eimer,
“Thai government poll apparently shows 99 per cent of citizens are
happy with the leadership,” Telegraph, December 23,
2015, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/12
066647/Thai-government-poll-apparently-shows-99-per-cent-ofcitizens-are-happy-with-the-leadership.html.
5
Private conversation with an anti-cyber law campaigner and legal
expert, July 3, 2017, Bangkok.
6
See, for example, Nidhi Eoseewong, “The Thai Cultural
Constitution,” Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, no. 3 (2003); Janjira
Sombatpoonsiri, “The 2014 Military Coup in Thailand: Implications
for Political Conflicts and Resolutions,” Asian Journal of
Peacebuilding 5, no. 1 (2017): 131–54; Marc Saxer, “The Middle
Classes in the Vertigo of Change,” Social Europe, August 20,
2014, https://www.socialeurope.eu/2014/08/vertigo-of-change/.
7
See, for example, “Watch out new Computer Act, concerns over
restricted freedom of expression” [in Thai], Naewna,November 1,
2016, http://m.naewna.com/view/highlight/242633; Gimme (pen
name), “Cyber security law—no more privacy and we have to stop
this” [in Thai], Droidsans,January 29,
2015, https://droidsans.com/stop-cyber-security-law.
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