Confusing Censorship

As many of you back home know, YouTube is banned in Thailand due to someone posting a video saying bad things about the King. Recently however I have seen many people on the net claiming that YouTube is no longer blocked in Thailand.

Well crap I still can't see YouTube so what gives?

I did a little more research into the matter and found a few interesting things out.

1. The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) gives out a list to the different ISP's here on what sites to block. It is up to each ISP to enforce this list. So this explains why someone may be able to view a website from their office but not from their house. Or why one person can view a website while I can't. Simply put, one ISP hasn't blocked the website... yet.

I've heard that the main routers leading out of the country have since been given a block list but that does not seem to be true if the above phenomenon still happens.

2. MICT people barely use e-mail themselves. This is a group that hardly even uses the medium that it enforces. So in their efforts to censor they do not realize that they can ban a single page or video. Instead they ban entire domains regardless of what else might be banned. Thus effectively banning more websites than they even know. They claim to have banned about 200, but independent groups estimate blocked websites in the thousands. Hence my earlier post of wondering if blogger would work since a Thai blog drew the ire of MICT.

3. The interim military government doesn't seem to know how bad this makes Thailand look to the rest of the world. If they knew that they were being put in the same league as oppressive dictatorships (Link, scroll down to the graphs), I think that things would change. However, as stated before they don't use the internet that much.

4. Add everything up and you get a mess of attempted censorship. Nothing works right, they ban more than they know, and depending on who you get internet service from some stuff might not even be banned. (Ie: I can get Newgrounds but not YouTube, and Newgrounds is also on the ban list at number 17637.)

5. Note: Porn is banned in Thailand outright, and has been for some time. Hence many websites on the ban list are pornographic in nature. I'd say 90% seems about correct. However if you want to see some skin there are plenty of go-go bars in the tourist areas. This ironic topic I'll save for later. Confusing to a westerner but not for the Thai.

So all in all Thailand itself is still a really good place to be right now, it just looks kind of bad from the outside. I can personally say, as a foriegner who is a "tourist", that I'm still having fun and enjoying my time here. The censorship barely effects me, and to be honest I don't notice it until I get on the net. If I lived here and had to deal with the politics, then my view might change. But no, I'll be back in November to deal with all the silly American politics back home, and our own confusing "censorship". Don't be so harsh on the Thai censorship, as I know firsthand that America has it's own faults in the media.