Innovation of retrieval system to investigate censorship in online social media

Provision of intermediary liability in computer crime law in Thailand has induced online service providers to control illegal content including content that is deemed harmful or problematic excessively. The constructed Innovative Retrieval System (IRS) had investigated four forums in the most popular social media forum in Thailand, Pantip.com, and found that excessive censorship or overblocking in the website is prevalent. There is no consistency of censorship pattern among forums. The censorship criteria depend mostly on type of content in each forum and the judgment of website administrator. The result of IRS investigation also found that overblocking rate in each forum is quite high. Over 70% of all content removed were not illegal. They were all removed because online service providers are fear of three factors: intimidation of governmental agencies, threat of lawsuits from business organizations, and fear of intermediary liability. Even if such censorship flaw both infringes users’ freedom of expression and impedes the social media business, website administrator admitted that it would worth it to cut off some users to avoid troubles. Therefore, government interference and intermediary liability provision in computer crime law are likely to be main obstacles threatening not only ingenious communication of the public, but also Internet business, innovation, and economic growth. The investment and growth in the Internet industry in Thailand would be deterred as long as these obstacles remain.

泰国计算机犯罪法中的中介责任条款，促使在线服务提供商对包括被认定为有害或存在问题的内容在内的非法内容实施过度管控。本研究构建的创新检索系统（Innovative Retrieval System，IRS）针对泰国顶级社交媒体论坛Pantip.com的四个板块展开调研，发现该网站普遍存在过度审查与过度拦截现象。各论坛的审查模式并无统一标准，审查准则主要取决于各板块的内容类型与网站管理员的主观判断。IRS的调研结果还显示，各板块的过度拦截率颇高，被移除的内容中超过70%并非非法内容。这些内容之所以被移除，皆因在线服务提供商忌惮三大风险：政府机构的施压、商业组织的诉讼威胁，以及自身需承担中介责任的顾虑。尽管此类审查缺陷既侵犯了用户的言论自由，也阻碍了社交媒体业务的发展，但网站管理员仍认为，为规避纠纷而限制部分用户的使用是值得的。因此，泰国计算机犯罪法中的政府干预条款与中介责任条款，或将成为主要障碍：它们不仅威胁公众的创意传播，也对互联网业务、行业创新与经济增长构成冲击。只要这些障碍持续存在，泰国互联网行业的投资与增长便会受到抑制。