Thai Protests Trigger Web Crackdown

After violent protests, state hopes to quash 400 sites that threaten 'national security'
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 3, 2008 12:08 PM CDT
Thai Protests Trigger Web Crackdown
An anti-government protester guards a barricade in Bangkok.   (AP Photo)

Thai authorities are trying to shutter 400 websites, the Guardian reports, in the wake of anti-government demonstrations in Bangkok that led the prime minister to declare martial law yesterday. The move targeted sites that were said to have “disturbed the peaceful social order and morality of the people, and/or which were considered detrimental to national security.”


The objectionable sites include 344 deemed to contain material contemptuous of the royal family; others contained religious, sexual, or obscene content. The government advised providers of another 1,200 sites that they violated the country's computer crime laws and should be shut down.

(More Thailand stories.)

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