On Jan 11, Thairath online reported the shut down of the website, finding the accounts by the people involved were not coherent.
ICT inspector and spokesperson Thaneerat Siripachana said that the ICT had nothing to do with the problem with the Fah Deaw Kan website, but the Ministry had instructed officials to collect background information and monitor it because the contents were quite offensive and improper under the current circumstance during the mourning period for HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana.
"The officials told me that the website was shut down by the hosting service, without the ICT's involvement. I understand that the hosting service was afraid of being penalized under Article 14 of the Computer Crimes Act, so it made the decision on its own," said the ICT spokesperson.
Pongpolchai Thaweecharoenkij, Managing Director of Otaro Co., which maintains servers hosting websites, including Fah Deaw Kan, said that there were posts on the web-board that might constitute lèse majesté, so Otaro notified the hosting service Net Service Co about the problem, and told it that in the event of any prosecution, Otaro would definitely implicate Net Service. He said it was up to Net Service to make a decision.
"Otaro is not authorized to shut down any server. And the servers have usernames and passwords set by the owners, the hosting service, so Otaro cannot shut them down. Otaro just sends warnings to our customers, and it is up to them as to what to do," said the Otaro MD, adding that the company would be subject to prosecution as an accomplice if it did nothing.
Pongpolchai said that his company also suggested that Net Service keep all the information, and if possible, make copies to prevent loss, so as to defend itself in case it became a court case.
He insisted that the ICT had no hand in this decision.
"The ICT would be involved in two cases: either an Internet Service Provider (ISP) finds illegal websites and notifies the ICT, and the ICT would notify all other ISPs to block access to those websites; or the ICT finds those websites itself, and then notifies the ISPs to block them. In this case, Otaro acted on its own without any pressure from the ICT. It would make no sense if Otaro found the [Fah Deaw Kan] website, and notified the ICT so that the ICT would notify us to block it, anyway," he said.
While a Net Service Co Ltd executive calling himself ‘Pinij' said that his company sent an e-mail telling Fah Deaw Kan that the server maintenance company Otaro had shut down a server hosting the Fah Deaw Kan website. Therefore, in order to continue the service to other websites hosted on the same server, Net Service needed to cancel its service to the Fah Deaw Kan website.
Pinij said Otaro shut down the server without prior notice, but he had no idea if Otaro was instructed to do so by any party. Net Service just wanted to continue its business, so it decided to terminate its service to Fah Deaw Kan which was already quite controversial. And the company was not afraid of any prosecution that might ensue, because the terms of service allow termination in case the server gets ‘damaged', but there was no written agreement [between Net Service and Fah Deaw Kan].
Fah Deaw Kan editor Thanapol Eawsakul said that now the website had been moved to a hosting service abroad and only the web-board was back online. Contacts have been made with Net Service to retrieve the lost data. As yet his team did not know for certain how much data was lost as it included all articles and clips accumulated in the past 5 years.
Thanapol said after data retrieval is finished, his team will consider whether to sue anyone. Though he believes the ICT was behind this, he admitted that there was no evidence in writing, except for the one e-mail from Net Service, which can be prosecuted because there is a service agreement.
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