New Mandala gets plenty of comments. As our long-term readers know some people out there consider them a mixed blessing. From where I sit they are a tremendous addition to this site and its collective effort to offer new perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia. Compared to some Thai language websites, however, we are a minnow in the comments stakes. Even in 2012 we have the luxury of “hand moderating” our comments. Some websites – especially very big and very busy ones – cannot afford that.
Since Chiranuch Premchaiporn was first accused of breaking the law for failing to delete comments on the Prachatai website quickly enough there have been increased concerns about the responsibilities of Thai webmasters when dealing with comments. This issue deserves serious scrutiny, especially from those who benefit from the vitality, insight and argument of online commentary.
Today, an article in the Wall Street Journal points out that:
[Thailand's] 2007 Computer Crimes Act holds online intermediaries (web portals and the like) liable for illegal content posted by others…This law is particularly significant in Thailand because other laws, especially the lese-majeste laws prohibiting certain comments about the monarchy, can apply to many kinds of Internet communications…
After outlining the benefits of online communication, it goes on to argue that:
A poorly conceived law that targets the middleman website or portal jeopardizes all these advantages. Online bulletin boards, especially, are a huge source of information and hence build value. Pantip is Thailand’s largest, with an average of 4,600 new discussion topics per day. The information on those boards can help consumers to find the right prices, businesses to find the right customers, startups to get discovered and friends to connect. But how is an e-commerce site supposed to judge the risk of an illegal comment being posted in its product review section?
All this seems obvious and yet the Thai government is unlikely to repeal the law. A loosely defined law allows the authorities to prosecute intermediaries, rather than provide a clear framework that clarifies the risks and allows businesses and users to make informed decisions and reap the benefits of a thriving Internet economy.
For the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra the growing chorus of disapproval about the Computer Crimes Act and related laws is surely an unwelcome distraction. I expect they feel somewhat paralysed and, with little room for aggressive change, have opted to take the proverbial path of least resistance.
Now this is where New Mandala commentators come in. You’re a web-savvy group and have, in many cases, many years of experience with websites and comment forums. Some of you have even been active on New Mandala for almost 6 years!
So how would you change the 2007 Computer Crimes Act to make Thailand’s Internet a place more conducive to debate, exchange and trade? Does this law need to be abolished or, given the constraints of the current government, is there some other effective way of neutering its negative impact on Chiranuch and all those like her?
Your thoughts, as ever, are very welcome.
> “we have the luxury of “hand moderating” our comments”
It’s not a luxury, it’s a straight choice. Because you hand-moderate the comments, the discussion is held up, and you can go on hand-moderating.
I’m not sure if the fixing a particular act is the main priority when the Thai legal system is simply medieval. Jiew was locked up until she coughed up 300,000 baht bail money and had her life on hold for many months. A foreigner facing the same charges might even have been denied any opportunity for bail while waiting for the court to deliberate on “the least cowardly option”.
Nich, you and Andrew might not be affected by Thai laws, unless you get the rotten luck of an overflight developing engine trouble, but unfortunately anyone involved with asiapacific.anu.edu.au could find themselves facing charges on their next visit to Thailand. Again, not a particular problem with this law – the Thais have demonstrated their will to apply any law on their books to crimes committed ‘abroad’.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Yes, it has to be abolished. It stops the necessary conversations in Thai society. I notice the Bangkok Post, for instance, puts a routine “comments have been stopped for fear of legal dispute” on just about anything remotely controversial such that often most of the articles on the front page of their website cannot be commented on.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
There are many robust comments I might like to make about some topics but don’t as if I were tracked down over a misinterpretation of what I was suggesting then who would feed my family as I rotted away or died in jail. Some sites I even visit by proxy.
That is the reality, I self moderate or don’t comment some topics. Although from observing some of the dislikes I have received some might suggest I don’t do so enough
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Obviously the law should be repealed. Its disingenous justification at the time was to protect consumers from fraud on the net but there are few signs that it has ever been employed for that purpose. Meanwhile, e-commerce has never really got off the starter’s blocks in Thailand partly due to the lack of adequate legal framework. Now would be a good time to ditch this odious law and come up with a new law that is genuinely intended to facilitate e-commerce and cut down on the thousands of unnecessary journeys made to collect cash and obtain hard copy signatures. Thailand is one of the few democratic countries where you have to provide your ID or passport details just to use an internet cafe or use a wi-fi card at Starbucks which is ridiculous.
Unfortunately this law is very consistent with Thailand’s civil law approach that relies on deliberately vague and ambiguous statutory laws that can be easily amended through ministerial regulations without the bother of going through Parliament again. Since precedent doesn’t carry the weight that it is does in common law jurisdictions and there are no juries, judges also have a lot more power and contradictory rulings by the same court based on the same law in different cases are common, e.g. Thaksin’s acquittal on asset concealment by the Constitutional Court compared to Sanan’s conviction on a less serious charge of the same thing. Most Thai judges don’t come up through the ranks of successful barristers, as they do elsewhere, but join the judiciary straight from law school so that being partial is the only way they can money and advance their careers.
It is basically a putrid justice system that needs a complete overhaul. This law would be a great place to start and the PM could pick up brownie points by repealing it on the grounds that it needs to be rewritten in order to serve its original purpose of preventing internet fraud and facilitating e-commerce. Somehow I think that she will keep smiling at everyone and doing nothing.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Thailand has a Law Reform Commission, part of the Council of State. Its current head has several times advocated serious changes to Thailand total criminal and civil codes, and in the processes that do not deliver the justice they were allegedly designed to do.
Whatever comments you get from your editorial inquiry here pale in comparison to what the LRC might say to you. Why not write them, as I have last week, regarding the lese majeste law?
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Re neutering the negative impact, for Thai news organisations to offer cheaper website front-page/header advertising to respectable VPN services? Or even VPN clients for download… For Thai news organisations to start hosting web content overseas and for journalists to begin writing more anonymously…
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Re helping webmasters, to encourage commentary on other social media sites like Twitter rather than the comments section of the website itself… for instance by including a hashtag at the end of an entry, directing commentary to be ‘filed’ there… (Above post re neutering in general).
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Frank G Anderson: Perhaps write to them and ask them if they have any idea when any rich person, connected person, politician or official is going to spend one day in jail for the crimes they’ve committed and will commit? When the codes are being applied they can then they can start tweaking them. Even in China and Vietnam ministers and officials are being jailed and executed when they’ve committed crimes. Isn’t Sondhi Lim supposed to be behind bars?
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
The comments in this blog are like the Rhizome of a plant sending shoots off everywhere and one damn good reason to keep tabs on the multiple conversations going on here.
I am sure their are oodles of things in this blog that could bring jackboots to the door at some random unpredictable hour, fear being a key driving force of political complacency, apathy and inactivity.
Frank G. Anderson: “Thailand has a Law Reform Commission, part of the Council of State. Its current head has several times advocated serious changes to Thailand total criminal and civil codes, and in the processes that do not deliver the justice they were allegedly designed to do.”
Which raises the question of why no action is ever taken?
Far more interesting than what I or any reader of this blog thinks about the oppressive net laws is what everyman or little man thinks or the audience that Police Captain Chalerm is pandering to when, for instance, he wants to get that execution chamber working at full throttle again or declares that LMers will all go to hell.
That forces for democratic change may have a dark side and may not always be the heroic and enlightened forces that this blogs makes them out to be, that LM and computer crime laws may have active support or at least passive acceptance among large swathes of the population and even give them a sense of purpose feeling as if they fighting off the enemy on the walls of Ayutthaya in the good old days, explore that idea why don’t you (and please don’t unfalsifiable assertions ascribing it all to “Amat” mind control or brainwashing.)
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
I do think Frank G Anderson’s recommendation and action to be very good. I will consider same while considering the other thoughts.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
I think Pantip.com get around the problem by making sure everyone registered on their forums goes through a full ID check. Think people on there have to send copy of ID card, passport of whatever. Some other forums do this as well. And it’s not just to do with LM but also to do with death threats, rape threats and the usual gamut of things that make up “social media”.
Google+ have taken the “verified ID” route to a degree, I believe, with people suspected of having a fake identity prevented from getting IDs.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Thanks for all of these comments,
So should New Mandala take an “ID verified” approach? We have considered it in the past and opted against for various reasons. With today’s technology such a system would likely mean we don’t need to “hand moderate” comments. As anyone who has run a website in a large institutional context can appreciate: “hand moderation” is not simply a choice. But I do wonder whether it is sustainable or desirable. A system of verified (real?) identities has much to commend it. With such an approach we may, however, lose the simpler opportunities for those who want/need to remain anonymous?
With politics so uncertain in all of the countries that New Mandala deals with that may not be ideal.
As ever, your further comments are very welcome.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Can you be arrested under the CCA if the site is hosted and moderated outside of Thailand?
LM has a universal jurisdiction, but I’m not sure about the CCA. So if all is managed from Australia, can anyone working on the site in Australia be held to account under Thai law?
The ability for people to comment anonymously is a great strength of the site. There are justifiable reasons for people having more than one ID, eg one named and another pseudonym. A key problem of the lack of verification is the amount of abuse by people who set up sock puppets so they can increase their virtual voice.
A verified ID could work as long as people can remain publicly anonymous and it would enable you to keep an eye on the use/abuse of multiple identities, but again where is the site hosted and moderated from. You’d have to be sure that the personal verified data of users was stored safely and beyond the legal reach of Thai authorities.
Why not have a survey? You would need some form of verification (ie email), but as this is only would you be more likely/less likely to post is NM required verification, I don’t see why people would not participate.
You could also continue with the current system, making it automatic, but having a flag system where readers could report the comment if they thought it required your review. Hopefully, such a system would not be abused by posters.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Greg Lowe – 13
So if all is managed from Australia, can anyone working on the site in Australia be held to account under Thai law?
The prachatai case combine with Joe Gordon case somehow makes me think that everyone is actually under Thai’s law if its involved the Thai royal family, that’s my 2 cents everyone is free to argue btw.
Personally I disagree with any form of censorship so obviously I would say abolish the law.
It would be so funny if Mark Zuckerberg got arrest here in Thailand for a comment made my a user that defaming the King on facebook (there are plenty of that in FB now anyway), I’m waiting for that day.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
If there are too many hoops to jump through I won’t comment. If it entails providing too much personal info I won’t either. New Mandala doesn’t run on https so I can’t be sure i’m actually connected to New Mandala. Linkedin just allowed the passwords of 6 million users (and credit card numbers of a subset of those who were subscribers) to get into the hands of a band of crackers.
Nicholas what are your terms of reference? Are you more bothered by folks pushing fake handbags or by real humans posting really idiotic, inflammatory stuff. Automated spam can be dealt with (clue: it’s all in the headers). Daft people can be held up by a reputation system – this would entail everyone having a login/password – the capability for which is already in WordPress. The reputation part would have to be hacked on in the form of a plugin.
> “LM has a universal jurisdiction, but I’m not sure about the CCA. So if all is managed from Australia, can anyone working on the site in Australia be held to account under Thai law?”
I think we were all surprised when Joe Gordon was arrested. When the discussion is framed in terms of “what stunt are they going to pull next?”, it’s no use talking in terms of legalese such as jurisdictions. They’re not bound by any of that stuff – remember Anthony Chai?
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
I don’t really think a system of ID verification is viable for NM. The risk of it being hacked to get posters’ IP addresses is real enough already. Having all their ID information neatly stacked in a server waitng to be stolen by ill intentioned parties would be a big turn off and a lot of useful information that gets posted here would no longer materialise.
The police have repeated warned that anyone even clicking on a “like” button can be arrested under the CCA or Section 112. I don’t think they would have a problem arresting someone for administering the site from overseas, if someone complained and the administrator turned up in Thailand, nor do think a court would have a problem in denying bail to a foreigner in this situation. Then the case might hinge on whether the CCA is extraterritorial or not and whether LM, which clearly is, was committed by the administrator. It wouldn’t really matter much whether there was a conviction or not because foreigners are automatically pardoned within a couple of weeks, if they plead guilty and apologise. The punishment would the year spent in shackles in a Thai prison awaiting trial and during the trial, not to mention being trapped in a Kafkaesque “justice” system and the long term damage to physical and mental health.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Why don’t Western countries simply introduce RECIPROCAL LAWS against Thai extra-territoriality re. the CCA and LM laws ?
Eg. it could be made AUTOMATIC that any Thai official, from the lowest to the highest, infringing on free speech practised in the Western democracies, is AUTOMATICALLY penalised with sanctions such as those we’ve practised against government officials of Burma, apartheid South Africa, Rwanda, etc., etc. – eg. freezing their overseas bank accounts, blocking them or their families from travel to the West, etc.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
You could have a verified ID check system with anonymous commenting.
There’s advantages and disadvantages with going with that same as there are with persisting with the status quo.
Yes, LM has universal jurisdiction which therefore turns it into a “global” issue and not just one for Thais.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Amazing – is Malaysia following Thailand’s lead?
Najib Razak, the Nottingham educated leader of the global movement of moderates, who wants Malaysia to become a world class democracy, is surely taking lessons from Thailand.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
The law is intentionally vague and sweeping to allow the authorities the leeway to strike at opponents, as well as at random in order to incite fear and self-censorship.
I wonder why the analysts are giving so much weight to the case of Prachathai admin as a “legal precedent”. There is no such concept in Thailand, no requirement for consistency, or even basic respect for facts, in judicial decisions. All this decision means is that the judges decided it’s the best way to balance things to advance their own positions.
Law is used just for appearances, to provide cover for official decisions, and discarded as needed (note how often the *constitution* is simply tossed out).
In LM cases, a Thai judge simply cannot acquit the defendant, even in a remarkably weak case and even when there’s strong evidence of innocence. Acquittal would mean the judge opens himself to accusations by peers and superiors that he does not sufficiently love the king. Officials typically hand-picked due to connections simply won’t do it.
In this case, Khun Chiranuch was lucky that there was enough of a public outcry (including from commercial interests), so the judges saw the suspended sentence as the path of least resistance (instead of a heavy jail sentence). Nothing to do at all with guilt, innocence, legal precedent, or even phrasing of laws.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Marteau, #16: “… a lot of useful information that gets posted here would no longer materialise”
I think a lot of that information gets posted under real names, many of them Thai and many based in Thailand. That aside, if the information wouldn’t/shouldn’t be appearing if contributors were operating under the risks you describe, then it also surely shouldn’t be transmitted over a plain http connection either.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
What A Noo NY Mouse (20) has outlined is the criminalising effects of absolutism on the Thai legal system. Absolutism is a system of criminal connections, many of them secret, that corrupts and demeans the legal system, the parliament, government administration, and necessarily the royal family and the King himself.
After 80 years of false starts, failure, and regression, the time is ripe for the system to be changed, but by persuasion. There is no point in blaming individuals, in holding them to account. That will provoke the fiercest resistance. There are also too many of them. The worst of the corrupted people will grow old still burning with resentment and hate: that is sufficient punishment for them. But the best of them will be persuaded that there was nothing to be proud of in holding office under such a system, that the Thai people deserve better, and to join in the work for it.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Given the nature of the site you are better off allowing ‘anonymity’ (such as it is), unless you want to encourage self-censorship and thereby support political repression of people living in not-so democratic states.
I would suggest adding SSL to the site and getting rid of IP logging if you can. IPs are of little value from a site security point of view these days, but they can be a significant liability to posters when someone turns up with a court order or just breaks in.
Better not to collect them at all.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Simon: Ip addressed are stored in two locations: 1) the apache logs, 2) the wordpress logs. (I’ll ignore the logs that WordPress themselves as well as several more third parties will keep – but we shouldn’t.)
Getting rid of the ip addresses from both these locations is non-trivial. Quite simply very few people alter the way Apache logs visits. It’s even more complicated here because the web server is hosting the whole of asiapacific.anu.edu.au – not just New Mandala. In WordPress there’s no option to clear ip addresses – they’re logged with every comment and only disappear when the comment is deleted. The moderators have indicated that they like to refer to ip addresses to detect bogus posts so they have to be logged for at least several days.
Don’t post dangerous stuff from an IP address (or rather, connection) that you use often or only a few people use. As displayed in the case of Ah Kong, the authorities have shown they’re willing to follow a circumstantial trail to identify a machine and hold an owner to account.
But if you think you’re on the home run once you’ve got your ip address obfuscated then think again. Think about Panopticlick:
https://panopticlick.eff.org/
Realistically, your ip address holds less identifying information that the request headers that you browser sends.
Log into your Yahoo mail then a few minutes later (or hours or days, really) post an illegal comment on New Mandala via an obfuscated ip address? They’ve got you!
Or potentially they’ve got you anyway, I really doubt the Thai authorities are sophisticated enough to be doing that kind of fingerprinting. The good news is that SSL (ie https) hides all those headers.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
There is a ‘remove IP’ plugin available for WordPress which kills IP addresses in comments (I haven’t tried it, not being a WordPress user, but it may be worth a shot). Otherwise I am pretty sure the admins could ask some of ANU’s computer geeks how to modify the code to kill the IPs. Generating random (fake) IP addresses could be a useful (and possibly amusing) misdirection, as would adding a bit of random noise in post timestamps.
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/remove-ip/
Re. Apache logs, ok other bits of the domain will want to keep them for generating stat reports and probably New Mandala does too. However, they could clear the logs after generating each months report without too much hassle (or have someone with an appalling memory quietly put them in an undisclosed offline location). If New Mandala was placed on a separate subdomain it should be possible to kill that without interfering with the rest.
As you say, I am fairly sure the Thai authorities are fairly useless at this stuff (I have had some feedback along those lines). However, I am also sure that IP logs would be taken fairly seriously in a Thai court, should they get their hands on them, and if the AFP turn up with a court order, realistically ANU is going to hand them over.
Re. the moderators views, I think they should have a serious think about this – is the convenience of IPs worth the risk to participants? It’s a real issue here, especially for people who don’t have conventional views. And I’m pretty sure they could spot bogus posts without them.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
Simon: The plugin doesn’t seem to have any option for keeping ip addresses for a limited time, was last updated in 2009, and is registered as being compatible with WordPress up to version 2.8.6 where NM is on version 3.2. New Manadala already has at least one vulnerable plugin – it doesn’t need any more – or it totally goes against what you’re trying to achieve doesn’t it?
Best advice is don’t post sensitive stuff from a connection that you use often or only a few people use. Then the ip addresses will hold no value. Don’t be so focused on one aspect – the issue is not done and dusted if you reckon you’ve obfuscated your ip address.
There are some brave fellas (I mean that with the ultimate respect) on here who will continue to test the limits but for the rest of us … just think think and think again about what you post. A good piece of advice might be: don’t post anything that you don’t feel comfortable printing out and carrying around in your back pocket.
[Posting again - I keep forgetting that NM doesn't like comments posted thru TOR.]
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
And …
> “If New Mandala was placed on a separate subdomain it should be possible to kill that without interfering with the rest.”
Separate logs can be kept for entries too. But there are advantages and disadvantages to going down the separation route. An argument could be made that records cannot be divulged because the logs are mixed up with everything else on asiapacific.anu.edu.au – such tactics have been used before (most often by governments if recollection serves). From where we stand Simon, I don’t think we can speculate on which option might be the best.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0
@Tarrin wrote:
“It would be so funny if Mark Zuckerberg got arrest here in Thailand for a comment made my a user that defaming the King on facebook (there are plenty of that in FB now anyway), I’m waiting for that day.”
Oh, those anti-Monarchy pages on FB are extremely amusing! Some of the pictures made me laugh like mad.
I also recall one page which focuses exclusively on publicising nude pictures of certain Royals (in fact, I got my complete album of Royal nude pictures from that page lol). But I forgot the name of that page. I heard these pages are being banned on a daily basis. Yet shutting down and banning the page has little effect with these Cyber warriors. They would get a new email address, sign up with FB again, and resume their tireless quest to publicise the nude pictures again. Some of the anti-monarchy posters claimed they had already been banned 50 times. That is quite something.
BTW, I don’t think Zuckerberg will ever be arrested in Thailand. Thai authorities would not dare to do that although FB is the hot spot for anti-Monarchy Thais to publicise information which Thai authorities are trying hard to hide. Zuckerberg made too much money for USA, and the USA will not allow citizens who make that much money for their government to be arrested. If Thai authorities dare to arrest Zuckerberg, the US may even turn themselves against the Thai elites. I am sure the Thai elites wouldn’t want that.
Quality comment or not?
0 
0