Towards Social Transformation in Thailand: Orwellian Power Struggles and ‘Digital’ Human Rights Under the Socio-technical Thai Internet Panopticon

Abstract

In Thailand, a military elite has repressed activity on the World Wide Web (Web) through ‘emergency’ surveillance acts following a coup d’état in May 2014. Since then, harsher punishments than have been imposed previously, less personal freedoms and even vaguer legislation, restrict ‘digital’ human rights. This fuels a ‘surveillance culture’ echoing George Orwell, whose novel 1984 describes a society driven by paranoia, peer-observation and self-censorship. In South-East (SE) Asia, repression of freedoms is not new. However, Thailand is, supposedly, a democratic country, where freedom of expression is enshrined in law. This shapes a worrying ‘digital’ future for Thai citizens where, since 2019, a newly ‘legitimate’ and military-backed government seeks to realise a socio-technical Thai Internet Panopticon. In this chapter, we consider why this is problematic.