Facebook expected to block all URLs hit by court orders: ministry
Ministry of Digital Economy and Society staff have said they expected social media giant Facebook to block access to all 131 web addresses deemed illegal by authorities by the end of the month.
Facebook, meanwhile, was waiting for official court orders regarding the content in question.
Somsak Kaosuwan, deputy permanent secretary of the ministry, said Tuesday that his agency expected the URLs with content deemed illegal would be blocked this month.
He said the ministry had sent 24 official court orders in English to Facebook – each one focusing on a single web address – in order to support its request for the company to block the URLs, adding that blockage could be done within a single day.
The remaining 107 official court orders will be sent as soon as they are available, he said.
The ministry was waiting for official court orders from the Criminal Court.
Earlier, authorities gave Facebook until late Tuesday morning to make the web pages inaccessible in Thailand while threatening legal action. However, none of the URLs were blocked after the deadline passed.
The 131 web addresses in question were deemed to have content insulting to the monarchy, threatening national security, depicting pornography or being involved in fraud.
With more than 40 million users, Thailand is among the world’s most active countries on Facebook.