GLOBAL COVERAGE OF WEBSITE CRACKDOWN

I must admit to being quite surprised at the prominence given in the international media to yesterday's announcement by the Thai government of a crackdown on anti-royal websites. The story was the third or fourth lead on BBC World News yesterday evening and most of the global news organisations have picked up on it.
Some of the coverage is coming close to being deemed ripe for censoring. I say that having noted some of the relatively innocuous sites that have already been blocked.
The BBC website, for example, says: "But in their attempts to prevent such material being seen in Thailand, overzealous officials have been blocking relatively innocent sites that, for example, merely refer to the strict lese majeste statutes that outlaws criticism of the monarchy. And no amount of Internet censorship can prevent the growing, though still very discreet, discussions among ordinary Thais over the monarchy - some of which can be surprisingly frank."
The Bangkok Post has an editorial online which is also quite bold. It says: "Any semi-skilled young student or office worker these days is aware of half a dozen ways to get around bans on websites." Discussions of less majeste issues in the Thai mainstream media are rare, let alone the fact it's easy to circumvent them.
Probably the best background piece I've seen appears on the Time website. Check it out here.