Govt may need new name for 'single gateway' plan if it goes ahead
THE GOVERNMENT may need a new name for its controversial "single gateway" plan now that it is no longer marketable to the public.
Several government websites were paralysed last week after opponents launched a coordinated attack using the DDoS (distributed denial of service) method.
They argue that the move would jeopardise the public right to privacy and freedom of expression.
Economically, Internet, e-commerce and related enterprises are also worried, suggesting that the move could hurt their business if the country’s Internet speed – now ranked among the world’s top 30 – faced a slowdown as a result of bottlenecks.
So what are the pros and cons of this plan? For the military-led government, centralising the country’s multiple gateways used by nine Internet service providers into one certainly makes sense from the perspective of national security.
It would be easier and more effective to filter out undesirable or illegal content accessible in Thailand on the Internet.
Filtering the Internet is not new. Other countries such as China, the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore also do it.
For Thailand, much undesirable and illegal content with a domestic political purpose has originated overseas, so the military-led government sees it as time to clean it up with this policy.
A document shows that a Cabinet resolution on this plan was tabled on August 4. On August 27, the Information and Communications Technology Ministry and other agencies were ordered to follow up on progress and report back to the prime minister.
Soon afterwards, the matter was no longer secretive and Thai netizens joined forces to oppose it, prompting the government to retreat with a suggestion that the plan was still under consideration.
From the government’s point of view, instead of separately calling all nine Internet service providers, one single order is enough to do the task of filtering out undesirable and illegal content.
For businesses and Net users, one of the benefits could be cheaper Internet access due to the economies of scale derived from a centralised operator, which in this case would be state-owned CAT Telecom, which would serve as the single gateway’s operator.
However, it is also risky that such a benefit will not be realised if there is no additional investment to boost the country’s bandwidth and single gateway capacity, and CAT Telecom could not manage it effectively.
For rights advocacy groups, more control is not the answer. The public have the right to their privacy and freedom of expression. Sentiment is even worse since this is happening 16 months after the coup.
What is the military-led government planning to do with the rights of the people? Will their Facebook, Twitter or Line messages be monitored by the government?
All these questions need to be answered openly by proponents of the single gateway plan. Most importantly, the government has to find a delicate balance between protecting the people’s rights and managing national security issues, as both are equally important.
To continue pushing for implementation of this crucial policy, the government needs to call it something else, not the so-called “single gateway”.
According to one expert, it should be called Thailand’s “new digital hub”, in which the country’s Internet gateway is centralised to boost its capabilities to better accommodate the fast-growing digital economy and other activities.
