Youtube down again?
YouTube access within Thailand is still patchy, even after it was officially unblocked last month.
Access to the site was possible last week on the True network, but since then all access times out.
Anyone else experiencing this? How is access on the other Thai networks?
Update
Well my suspicions are right, it seems that some networks are actually defying the lifting of the ban and banning the site themselves. I’m not sure of the legal aspect of this approach but it sums up that Thailand’s net access is still heavily restricted compared to the rest of the world.
So far the networks stopping you from accessing the site are:
– True
– TOT
Chris kindly sent this screenshot which shows how TOT are handling their own form of privacy
The text reads ” TOT is blocking access to this site that “offends the hearts” of the people of Thailand.”
The worry here is how ISP’s are acting on their own behalf when it comes to net content.
on Buddy Broadband, YouTube is up and running, albeit rather slowly (probably running through all that filtering – you could do search for Thai King and see the filter result, quite amusing).
It’s only unbanned for the main youtube.com though and not the subdomains (i.e. es.youtube.com or uk.youtube.com, etc.). But it’s working, and I am rather happy about that.
Not so for True network at my office, where the block seems to be still in effect (that or they are way too slow at updating their dns cache?). But the proxy sites work as a go-around.
Doesn’t really make sense why there would be differences between the networks, unless it’s these private companies supporting the ban themselves.
We have TOT and still cannot access YouTube through them. Instead we get a splash screen explaining (in Thai) how TOT is blocking access to this site that “offends the hearts” of the people of Thailand.