Military government to install its own China-inspired 'Great Firewall'

Thailand’s unelected military government has taken a major step closer to setting up a platform that will be able to block and sensor websites or apps, similar to China’s Great Firewall.

Bangkok-based reporter, Don Sambandaraksa, discovered a proposal to set sophisticated and streamlined web censorship while looking through months-old cabinet resolutions in the official government repository.

The edict from the cabinet of the nations’ military ruler, General Payuth, instructs the ICT and Justice ministries and the national police department “to set up a single internet gateway in order to control inappropriate websites and to control the flow of information into the country from overseas via the internet,” according to Don in his TelecomAsia report.

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Another order gave the agencies until September 4 to suggest laws that need to be amended to make way for authorities to make web blocks.

In the past, Thailand has occasionally blocked sites that deemed to defame or insult the royal family. The nation ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block MailOnline in May 2014, after the site posted a video of the Thai Princess “cavorting in just a tiny G-string as she feeds a pet dog cake,” in the sites’ trademark lingo.